Blog 4

Introduction (p. 9-12)

            Amber Buck’s paper, Examining Digital Literacy Practices on Social Network Sites, includes many important details in each section that lead to an ultimate conclusion. These details help to prove why her paper matters. In her introduction, Buck states, “Rather than leaving a paper note for them in the kitchen, Ronnie visits their private group page on Facebook” and, “For Ronnie, social network sites are intricately woven into the tapestry of his daily literacy practices; they play a large role in how he interacts with others in his person and professional life as well as how he presents himself to different audiences.” These quotations really show right from the beginning how important social media is to a person like Ronnie. From communication to his roommates to connections to a professional career, social media is becoming a crucial concept.

Methods (p.12-13)

            Buck’s Methods section begins with saying, “As Porter (2007) notes, research on digital writing cannot rely on the same methodologies, simply translated to digital environments.” This starts the methods section out by stating that this section is going to be different from normal methodologies sections. It is a different type of research so different methods are going to be used. She also stated, “Collecting data from these various sources allowed me to develop a multifaceted picture of literate activity in connection with social network sites.” This describes exactly why she uses the methods she used and what she is ultimately trying to do.

Results (p.13-30)

            Throughout her results section, Buck includes results that will help her to make a conclusion in her discussion section. One quotation stated, “For Ronnie, Twitter represented a ‘stream of consciousness,’ as he described it in an interview; he updated Twitter several times per day and connected primarily with close friends and roommates through the site.” This particular result was important for Buck to include since it really shows how important Twitter is to Ronnie. Buck also says, “Through these tweets, Ronnie showed himself to be an overcommitted and engaged college student, preoccupied with a busy schedule and sleep-deprived in the first and last tweets, always online, and managing school and leisure tasks online through projects and side activities like fantasy hockey.” This sets up a view of Ronnie to the readers. She will also be able to go through this view in the discussion and talk about if it is accurate or not.

Discussion (p.30-34)

            Buck touches on one point that was hinted at throughout the results section. She states, “…he went back to listing Alison as his girlfriend and added fake siblings. He changed his high school to Hogwarts’ School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and his current employer to the Ministry of Magic.” This discusses how social media sites can portray a person to be anything they want, and it might not be accurate. This is an important conclusion to make when discussing social media use. She moves on to discuss this fact and how Ronnie handled his information being so public, “In the six months after Facebook changed its privacy settings he migrated most of his information off the site.” Ronnie is considered to be an “expert” user, but this is an important point to discuss since so many people are likely to be naive when on social media sites.

Conclusion (p.34-36)

            Buck’s conclusion tells why she is writing this paper and why studying Ronnie was useful to her topic. She states, “Ronnie’s everyday literacy practices are embedded within an ecology of practice that is shaped by social and technological influences on his writing and his self-presentation on social network sites.” Even Ronnie, an “expert” user, is affected by different influences within social media sites. This concludes that everyone is susceptible to being influenced by social media and it is important to be aware of these facts. She points out that social media not only represents you as a person, but is also considered influence you in the real world. She says, “Students like Ronnie develop sophisticated rhetorical and literacy skills through these environments.” This is another important conclusion she makes. A look into students’ social media use can give an idea of how they use these sites to communicate and use digital literacy practices.