Assignments

Selfie Journals:  A weekly reflection on some act of identity construction that you performed online, whether Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. or email or even an online course site.  Texting also counts.  (These journals will not be read by other students or instructors.)

Blog Posts: Students are required to write 4 weekly posts on this blog over the course of the semester, reflecting on some issue of online identity performance that has appeared in the news media.  These reflections should be 250-500 words and can and should include whatever media you think necessary. 

Service Project: In coordination with JEP and the Neighborhood Academic Initiative, for 10 weeks of the semester, 1 hour per week, you will tutor first-generation college applicants as they apply for scholarships. This experience will be the focus of the fifth paper. 

Paper #1: Selfie ExaminationSee: Know Thy Selfie -- An Exercise in Selfie Relection
Students take 5 selfies and then submit them to an analysis along 3 identity axes, choosing from gender, race and ethnicity, sexuality, and socio-economic status. Supporting Readings: Gans, Goffman, Hall, van Dijck, and Walker Rettberg. Focus: Visual analysis of performance of symbolic identity. 

Paper #2: Diversity on our Networks: See Why Do All My Facebook Friends Look Just Like Me? 
Students run their Facebook friends through the Wolfram-Alpha Facebook App to see a break down of their friends.  Then, they analyze the results to see how much racial and ethnic diversity they find among their Facebook friends.

Paper #3: Research Network Segregation
A researched argument exploring problems achieving diversity on online networks.

Paper #4: Proposing a solution
A proposal for a solution or intervention into a problem regarding diversity or the expression of identity in online networks.

Paper #5: Service Project Reflection


Additional Exercises:
Cross-Town Selfies: Students exchange selfies with students from Miriam Posner's UCLA course and try to recreate each other's selfies but changing something crucial.

Speculative Selfies: Students post selfies of scenes to come.

Unpacking Videos: Students post short videos featuring their reactions to unboxing abstract concepts.

I Work for the Web:  a week-long netprov, reflecting on the free labor you contribute to social media sites through your posts, likes, and favorites.