Assignment 2:

ROAD TESTING SOME THEORETICAL CONCEPTS

This assignment is designed to get you road test some of the concepts youve read about from the
following books:

1. Baym, Nancy K. (2016) Personal Connections in the Digital Age (Polity Press, 2nd ed)
2. van Dijck, Jose (2013) Culture of Connectivity, Chap 1 & 2 (Oxford University Press)
[pdf attached]
3. Gordon, Eric & & Adriana e Souza di Silva (2016) Net Locality (Wiley)
Read: Introduction, Chap 4 [pdf attached]

The assignment involves speaking together as a class, breaking into smaller groups, and reflecting back
on the personal data we collected for Assignment 1. This assignment has 4 parts, labelled A-D below.

Under Assignment 2 on Blackboard, you should submit a reflection of approximately 350-500 words that
walks your reader through all parts of the assignment, but focuses especially on Part C (your personal
road test of the theory)

Part A: Group Work: Baym Concept List (20 min)

The class divides into 4 groups of 7 students each (groups A, B, C, D) Terri will show a Baym Concept
List*. Terri goes through the concept, designating each concept as either ABCDE until each group is
assigned 3 concepts to work with. *List can be found at end of this document

Each group takes their concepts and writes them out as argument. (i.e. context collapse = online
communication often blurs formerly stable boundaries between categories like community, audience,
public, private, etc.) Each group also writes out at least one way they might use the data they just
collected about themselves as a way to assess that argument.

Part B: Work individually to road test the arguments (10 min)

Each person thinks on their own about whether their knowledge of online/offline ife can
confirm/contradict/complicate the arguments. You can use material from your charts from yesterday, or
draw from stories from the news, from friends, etc. A final category (used sparingly) can be "not
applicable." Fill out your own chart like so:

Concept/ Author Argument My evidence confirm? Contradict? Complicate? NA

HOW HOW

Context collapse Photo I posted to YES-- I knew her

(baym via online friends of bro sent password
marwick communication Facebook. My to wife and could
often blurs because delete the
 formerly stable brother forwarded he message
boundaries to his wife, figured if before she
between its read it
categories like online it I was able to
community, must be physically
audience, public intervene
public, private, and change
etc the situation

Part C: Meet in small groups to go over responses. (30 minutes)

Fill in the chart with results similar to the one below. Designate one person in the group to report back to
class as a whole, but every person in the group should be ready to chime in with thoughts.

Concept/ Author Argument Overall Exceptions, Other notes?

verdict of Caveats?
group?

Context collapse 2-- confirm The capacity to This might

(baym via marwick online communication 4-- intervene with the matter re.
often blurs formerly complicate path of a digital Something
stable boundaries exchange via tech or like
between categories even in person is censorship
like community, something to
audience, public, consider; boundaries
private, etc could get reinstated

Part E: Meet as a class to draft a concept list using van Dyck and deSouza. (20 min)

Terri will assign each group arguments as with Baym.

Part F: As you did with the Baym concepts, think individually about these new arguments. Add the
information to your personal chart (15 min)

Part G: Meet as a group and add to your group chart. (20 min)

Part H: Report to full class (1 hour)

Each group will report their findings. Crystal and Terri will talk a bit about methodological issues in
projects like this: sampling, outliers, remembering evidence as questions shift, etc. We can also talk
about how the visual worked and didn't work as evidence).
_______________________________________________________________________________
BAYM CONCEPT LIST

7 concepts for comparing Media (Baym 7) (GROUP A)

Interactivity
Temporal structure
Social cues
Storage
Replicability
Reach
Mobility
Storage

Views of Technology (Baym 26) (GROUP B)
Technological Determinism and tech determinist rhetorics (utopia/dystopia, Baym 43)
Social Construction of Technology
Social Shaping & Domestication of Technology (see also Baym 51)
Moral panics (Baym 49)

Social Presence (Baym 59) (GROUP C)
As a psychological phenomenon
Social Presence Theory
Media Richness (Daft & Lagel in Baym 60)

Bayms Five Qualities of Community (84) (GROUP D)
sense of (metaphorical) sense space
shared practice and norms
shared resources and support
shared identities
interpersonal relationships

Social capital (91) (GROUP A)
Bonding and bridging capital (Putnam in Baym)
Esteem support and informational support (94)
latent ties (Haythornthwaite in Baym 114)

Networked individualism (Wellman in Baym 100) (GROUP B)
Networked collectivism (baym 101)

Imagined audiences (GROUP C)
structural factors in imagined audiences: roles, contexts, audience activity, site features
individual agency (social skills, motivations, internet skills) (Litt, 2012)
context collapse re imagined audiences (123)

Privacy v. Secrecy (Nissembaum in Baym 121) (GROUP D)
Social stenography (Marwick in Baym 122)

Publicness (Baym 122) (GROUP A)
Self-branding v. authenticity (122)

Personal versus Social Identity Choice (GROUP B)
SIDE Theory Model (Spears & Lee in Baym 132
Online Reputation and Right to Be Forgotten Law (134)

Platform-Influenced Identity Performance (Baym 138) (GROUP C)
platform norms and identity
platform algorithms and identity
The economics of sharing via platform norms and platform algo.(153)

Platform politics (Gillespie via Baym 18) (GROUP D)
Culture of Connectivity (van Dyck in Baym 18-19)