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This article provides some code snippets that can be used to query user data on Facebook via Facebook Query Language. It also describes how to use the Graph URL Scheme if you'd prefer to explore using URLs in your browser and not with code. Very useful for conducting online and virtual ethnographic research that entails Facebook users and communities.

I was looking back at this (really interesting) multimedia writing work by Anne Wysocki and noticed how many of the pieces required special players and ample download time/space - Flash Player, Shockwave Player, 1.5 MB of download space - which got me thinking about platform/storage restrictions and digital accessibility. In many instances, a researcher may need not only specific digital skills/knowledge, but also specific platforms, players, software, memory space, etc. to conduct her work. And as players, platforms, software, etc. are upgraded, older digital texts may become less accessible. On that note, I have been taking screen shots of all of the scenes in the Facebook game I'm currently studying. Why? One reason is so I can put these screen shots into a presentation, but the more pressing reason is that another game I'm really interested in looking at (Food Force, a social media game from 2005 - so ancient, right?) is no longer accessible. In its place is a Facebook page with a big bandaged thumb and a "Sorry! This page has been removed." message. An ethnography conducted in a digital space, it seems, requires just as much "recording" as one in an offline space.

The life and preservation of the digital world is a huge question, and one that I don't think enough people are considering. I see more and more of my friends taking all their photos with smartphones and loading them to Instagram or Facebook, or worse never moving them beyond their phones. I wonder what photos will have survived in 20 years when their children are looking to make wedding or anniversary slide shows, or simply becoming interested in their own pasts. There are no hard copies of these images, and while hard copies are vulnerable, so are digital copies for a number of reasons.

great points in this discussion, especially around issues of "access"...which range from having the "right" tech to get into a site to ADA regulations/requirements. Also, preservation is a complicated facet of access and one worth discussing seriously in this course as we think about digital data.

Interesting piece on the significance of different social apps.

[Synopsis] This book is a critical and ethnographic study of camgirls: women who broadcast themselves over the web for the general public while trying to cultivate a measure of celebrity in the process. The book's over-arching question is, "What does it mean for feminists to speak about the personal as political in a networked society that encourages women to 'represent' through confession, celebrity, and sexual display, but punishes too much visibility with conservative censure and backlash?" The narrative follows that of the camgirl phenomenon, beginning with the earliest experiments in personal homecamming and ending with the newest forms of identity and community being articulated through social networking sites like Live Journal, YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook. It is grounded in interviews, performance analysis of events transpiring between camgirls and their viewers, and the author's own experiences as an ersatz camgirl while conducting the research.

This study (and its author) is mentioned in this week's reading 'Digital Ethnography : An Examination of the Use of New Technologies for Social Research' by Dhiraj Murthy. Dissertation Remarks and Synopsis (from Theresa Senft's website) http://www.terrisenft.net/diss/synopsis.php#remarks

I think this article is really spot on in providing an important model for empirically studying and representing the spread of ideas (or controversies) between media and how participatory and professional media influence one another. The fact that this article is written as much for academics as for activists is also exciting (and scary) to me, as a means of thinking about agenda-setting and influence. How might access to these tools help activist campaigns, and how might they swing back to challenge them? How can you really measure effect? "Even when we are able to access the data we need for analysis, interpretation is complicated by the specificity of individualized media experiences, where we've each curated our own individualized lists of sources on platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This can leave us with very different understandings of the day's news. Is it possible to speak meaningfully about a media agenda when agendas are set by individuals following a combination of friends and professional sources they've chosen to meet personal preferences and needs?"

An interesting look at Facebook, Twitter, Google, and LinkedIn considering where these each will be 5 years from now and 10 years from now.

You can find the information for the Nina Simon Lecture on May 22 here...Come see the incredible Nina Simon, Executive Director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & Historyand Museum 2.0 and The Participatory Museum blogger, talk about what she is doing to make art museums more participatory. Learn from a leader in the field of audience engagement and participatory arts, and be inspired to be your own emerging leader!