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.