Blog #6

I have decided to write about the Jewish community that lived in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust. I have chosen this group because I have always been interested in pursuing more knowledge on the subject and it is within my field of study. I believe that I will be able to use texts about the group and also by texts written by people who have survived the holocaust and have written their own memoirs. I believe I will use mainly books but I will also use websites and videos to gather my information for this paper and as of right now I have a few books in mind to start off my paper but I am still developing my overall thesis for this paper.

Blog #5

The Lorber text takes a very direct route to social construction based off of physical attributes and not so extreme instances as are found in the Hanfler excerpt. Lorber uses sex (gender) as the basis for her discussion and focuses on the generalization of men and women. Lorber focuses on what some people may seem as extremist social views such as the skinheads, punk, hip hop and heavy metal enthusiasts and even falling into the discussion of virgins and their view on society.

The immediate assumption would be to think that skinheads are racist and not good people, which in all honesty is what I thought before reading the article. Hanfler however is able to explain that some skinheads fight for the opposite of what you would assume most skinheads to fight for. “Not only are SHARPs against racism they also tend to oppose sexism and homophobia, reflecting the official stance of the ARA. There are even websites for queer skinheads.” (Hanfler 23)

Young takes the approach of language and how people connect hearing someone talk and what their race and land of origin might be. Many people believe that if someone speaks a certain way they have to be of a specific race or area of the world while that may not be entirely true. Another comment made in the excerpt is how it is okay to talk however you want but only in the safety of your own home. “Dominant language ideology also say peeps can speak whateva the heck way they want to—BUT AT HOME!” (Young 111)

I see these things in my everyday life and I too can be found guilty of some of these prejudices. My job requires me to understand people as they bring their problems to me so I can explain a way to solve that problem in a way they can understand. Lincoln is a very multicultural city with people from the far east, the middle east, Africa, South America, and Europe. The problem is, some of these people may have learned perfect English but because they are from another part of the world their accent makes it difficult to understand and I find myself wishing they knew how to speak English even though they already do.

Blog #4

Introduction

She starts off the introduction as somewhat of a story which will help draw the reader in and also explains who the paper is about. It also jumps right into Ronnie’s day giving an overview of what the average day is for him while not giving too many specifics that could later be used in the paper. She also references other writers who have wrote about social media before to give some insight that what she is doing is based off of other professionals and that her readings will be specifically from social media.

Method

                She explains many things about what she did to get information and who she used. She clarified that Ronnie is part of a larger group of students who are being studied for data on how they use social media. Since we are a small enough class and we are using each other this is an aspect that we may not necessarily need in our papers however it is a good thing to remember for papers like this in the future. She specifies when exactly she followed Ronnie. In our cases we use older information and depending on our partners we are able to keep up with their more recent posts (if they have any).

Results

                She explains how she used the profile tour to her advantage and to get Ronnie’s point of view on his account. We have already been doing this in our papers and this are of good use to everyone in their papers. She also shows how active Ronnie is on social media, not only does she talk about his twitter page but she also explains what other sites he is on while still picking one to focus in on.

                She quotes him from the interview with “I try to keep my followers greater than the number of people I’m following because, you know, it’s just like my, I guess, weird habit. All the big people who tweet have—tend to have—more followers than people they’re following, so I feel like in a way that I am a publisher and not just someone who’s following people.” (Buck pg. 14) This is a great use of some of his personal input that isn’t even on twitter but gives the reader more of an understanding of why he acts the way he does.

Discussion

                In this section, Buck breaks down some things she found interesting and, even though she can’t physically talk with her readers, she tries to create questions that leave the reader thinking more about the article. “While Ronnie’s “relationship” with Alison lasted for just a week, he listed himself as in a relationship with her several months later to make a different statement.” (Buck pg. 31)  This is an example of one of these moments. Buck has made a statement about Ronnie but has left it open more the reader to interpret why Ronnie might have possibly stated that he was in a relationship with someone who was not real. “What is most interesting about Ronnie’s case is that he had no concerns about his information being online and publicly visible.” (Buck pg. 31) This shows the reader how skeptical Amber herself is about putting information on the internet and poses the question of what the reader thinks about privacy on social media.

Conclusion

                She states how Ronnie was an extreme case of someone who uses social media. This is an interesting thing to remember as we all work on our papers because we might not necessarily get as much information as Buck does with her research. Another thing to point out, which we all probably know, is that each social media site is different and the type of literacy will vary from one to the next which on page 35 Buck refers to. 

Blog #3

Many people join social media because there friends are doing it and so they can stay connected. Why did you decide to join social media?

Why decide to join one social media site and not another? Easier to use? People you know use one more than the other?

How are you different from the average user? Do you post things from your everyday life or do you have a separate persona on social media?

How often do you post? Do you only post for special occasions or do you put up to date instances on your site?

Are most of your followers close friends or do you follow people you think are interesting or have only met once before?

Do you see yourself as part of a larger community on social media or do you believe you are part of a select few on your website of choice and if so what communities are you a part of?

Has using social media made certain points in your life better? Helped you remember things or shared special moments with others?

Why do you have social media? When did you first get it?

News media stations and many other sources of information use Twitter, Facebook, Etc., to receive and release information, what kind of an impact has this had on your life?

What does your amount of followers mean to you? Would you rather have a lot of followers or only a select few?

What kind of information do you post online?

What are some things you would post on social media that you wouldn’t talk about in normal everyday life?

Social Media Articles

The use of social media in today’s world makes a huge difference in how people get information. A rough representation to a similar moment in history was when families started to get TVs or radios into their homes and people able to watch or listen to the news instead of getting the newspaper. Social media has ultimately combined all 3 of these to be used all around the world. It is now easier than ever to see what is going on anywhere on the planet if you feel inclined to learn about it. The hashtag activism article is the perfect example of this because I too learned of the Ray Rice incident over twitter. All it takes is one person to post a tweet than one person could like and retweet. It turns into a snowball effect and soon a man in India could be reading how a Baltimore NFL superstar punched his fiancé. Many people will say that Facebook and Twitter are their own to communities along with Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and many more. The problem is you might not now if what you say will upset another person who reads or sees your post. It can start many problems in a twitter community if someone opens up about how they feel on a subject, but that is why we are all human, because of our opinions.

            Quoting Harris, “In such views, community becomes little more than a metaphor, a shorthand label for a hermetic weave of texts and citations.” Though everyone on Twitter or Facebook are part of a community, one must remember that some do not care what others think and write just to write while others write to hate and others write for support. “Healthy discourse communities, like healthy human beings, are also masses of contradictions. . . . We should accustom ourselves to dealing with contradictions, instead of seeking a theory that appears to abrogate them. ('What" 18-19)” This is a perfect example to show how one might be saying or showing one thing but mean another. A good example of this is in Facebooking: Why I Didn’t Post This, which the author, Erin Zammett Ruddy, makes it clear that she did not want to post her photo of her children smiling with their snowman because it was not how the day had actually gone. She did not want to put a false sense of feeling out to the public eye when that is not really what happened.

            These communities are obviously special in their own way for them being comprised mostly of people who will never meet each other and yet they all have a huge influence on one another’s lives.

My name is Matthew Reinhart and I am from Elkhorn, Nebraska. I am a junior History major and I enjoy working on cars in my free time. I love all kinds of music and the stories behind their lyrics fascinate me. I love college football and I can get lost watching all the games during football season. I have 2 jobs one as an auto parts salesman and another as a maintenance worker. My main focus of study is Europe and the United States in wartime, specifically WWII, the Cold War and the American Revolution and Civil War. I have always had a love for history and just recently decided I wanted to make it my career to learn more and possibly teach my knowledge to other people.

          I am the type of writer who likes to get straight to the point. While being completely honest, is some instances I add “fluff” to my papers, most of the time I just get straight to the point with only the most important details. I write because I tend to talk too much but when I write I am able to  get my point across in a much more “clean” manor. I also enjoy writing because it is a good way of getting to know people. Sometimes it is more difficult to listen to someone speak and to judge them when they can put their true feelings onto paper and give the reader more time to digest the information being given to them.

          A community, depending on each individuals own perspective, is a group of people and or families that work or live together as a whole in more ways than one. A community can be something as simple and basic as a group of college students living on the same dorm floor or it can be a group like our class who will be working together to further each other’s knowledge and skill. I personally like to think of myself as a member of the academic community which most can describe as the people going to school. More specifically our academic community is the University of Nebraska and depending on your degree you may dive even deeper than that. Throughout my life I have been the member of my high school marching band community, the Boy Scout community, even my job can be a select type of community because I have a particular skill many others don’t have.

          Writing can make a large difference in many communities like in our class. Our class will be teaching us how to analyze, read, and write text in a way that will teach us to understand communities even better than we have known before. My high school band had a different form of writing in the fact that musical notes were used instead of words which created a new language of harmonies and chords. Many different factors can be taken into account for a community but in the end each person can decide what they believe a community is.