Moving forward…

After reading many articles on sociable media and listening to conference presentations, I wanted to focus on the connection between the technology, students and the social psychological aspects of student development. It seems that Facebook exists between the confines of the technology and the participatory culture that’s developed around the superstructure of Facebook. Jenkins would argue that the culture developed around Facebook would be a convergence culture as the society with this online social network participate in the “flow of stories, ideas, information, communities brands, intellectual properties…across media platforms” (Jenkins, 2006).

There is a top-down process of developing Facebook through the decisions made by the Mark Zuckerburg and the Facebook corporation (the look of Facebook, what advertising is allowed on Facebook, how much information is in public versus the private sphere, etc.). As important, there is also bottom-up development within the superstructure of Facebook (development of apps by students, groups discussing the changes to Facebook, games developed in the confines of Facebook played in the real world environment (e.g., “Humans vs. Zombies“).

Within this hypersocialized environment comes the bridge between Facebook (a microcosm of the social campus environment) and the campus itself. Facebook allows for the construction of an online persona, but there is a process of validation through the interaction of other personas in the real world (Turkle, 2005). Validation is part of the issue that needs to be explored when entering this discussion of incoming first-year students using Facebook as a coping mechanism. Validation in this context refers to the ability to determine the integrity and the relative correctness of the information presented online.

It is essential to discuss all of the relevant theoretical guideposts that will frame the rest of my dissertation research to move forward and research the problematic. Rheingold, Levy, Jenkins, and Turkle have all influenced my previous study and will continue to appear in this research project. However, I will need to embrace theorists in other fields to fully explore the research questions posed earlier in this proposal. It is this spirit that I wish to discuss my framework of the theory.