Alice Marwick
Alice Marwick is an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies and the Director of the McGannon Research Center at Fordham University. She is affiliated faculty in the American Studies program, an academic affiliate at the Center for Law and Information Policy at Fordham Law School, and an affiliated researcher at the Data & Society Research Institute.
Her work examines the impact of the large audiences made possible by social media on individuals and communities from a social, cultural, and legal perspective. She is the author of Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity and Branding in the Social Media Age (Yale 2013), a multi-year ethnography of the San Francisco tech scene which examines how people seek online status through attention and visibility, and the impact this has on gender and social status. Current research interests include online privacy practices, the changing nature of self-presentation (selfies, micro-celebrity), and gender, feminism and social media.
Marwick was previously a postdoctoral researcher in the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England. She has written for popular publications such as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The Guardian in addition to academic publications including Public Culture, New Media and Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Television and New Media and others. Alice has a PhD from the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University and is a Wellesley College graduate. She likes small dogs, vintage dresses, and dystopian science fiction.
Supervisors: Marita Sturken, Helen Nissenbaum, and Gabriella Coleman
Her work examines the impact of the large audiences made possible by social media on individuals and communities from a social, cultural, and legal perspective. She is the author of Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity and Branding in the Social Media Age (Yale 2013), a multi-year ethnography of the San Francisco tech scene which examines how people seek online status through attention and visibility, and the impact this has on gender and social status. Current research interests include online privacy practices, the changing nature of self-presentation (selfies, micro-celebrity), and gender, feminism and social media.
Marwick was previously a postdoctoral researcher in the Social Media Collective at Microsoft Research New England. She has written for popular publications such as The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The Guardian in addition to academic publications including Public Culture, New Media and Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication, Television and New Media and others. Alice has a PhD from the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University and is a Wellesley College graduate. She likes small dogs, vintage dresses, and dystopian science fiction.
Supervisors: Marita Sturken, Helen Nissenbaum, and Gabriella Coleman
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While not explicitly badged as an institutional MOOC, The Selfie Course nevertheless has all the characteristics of a MOOC in that it is easily (and massively) scalable, fully available online (http://www.selfieresearchers.com/the-selfie-course/), available in an open format for free, and is crafted by educators with a clear and accessible course structure. This chapter is co-authored by a number of initial writers of the six-week course, as well as one author who contributed during the AoIR workshop.
The Selfie course emerged from the Selfies Research Network, a Facebook-based discussion and research group established by Theresa Senft in early 2014, which has 2000 active members. Twelve members of this group collaborated to write a course about selfies which they could teach in various capacities in their local institutions, whilst making the content fully available online. The initial content was focused on identity; celebrity and branding; digital surveillance and biometrics; gender and sexuality; subalternity and otherness; and space, place and location specificities. The course was refined using social media and online collaborative authoring tools, and released publicly via a bespoke website. Importantly, the content was released under a Creative Commons license, explicitly encouraging reuse (far more open than many commercially-backed MOOCs).
This chapter will outline this production process in detail, as well as the differing ways the initial course played out in local contexts for the authors, as well as more broadly online. Importantly, the chapter will also outline the second phase which produced a further six weeks of the course via a workshop run at the AoIR conference, where the course was discussed, analysed, tested, critiqued, and ultimately extended. This chapter will also address the highly effective nature of this form of collaborative course writing, introducing the new content areas explored at the workshop. Moreover, after situating these processes, the chapter will conclude by demonstrating in detail how this approach to pedagogical construction, the distributed nature of responsibility and ownership (without fidelity to any one institution), and the commitment to open access and open redistribution, actually fulfils the ideals of MOOCs far more effectively than most offerings by the corporate start-up style offerings most widely discussed in the press and most loudly promoted by institutions. Finally, the chapter will conclude arguing that the Selfie Course offers a model for meaningful MOOC development which emphasises the direct sharing of cutting edge pedagogy and broader learning opportunities all developed via participatory design.
References
Kent, M., & Leaver, T. (2014). The Revolution That’s Already Happening. In M. Kent & T. Leaver (Eds.), An Education in Facebook? Higher Education and the World’s Largest Social Network (pp. 1–10). London & New York: Routledge.
Leaver, T., & Kent, M. (2014). Facebook in Education: Lessons Learnt. Digital Culture & Education, 6(1), 60–65.
Pretz, K. (2014, February 3). Low Completion Rates for MOOCs. The Institute. Retrieved from http://theinstitute.ieee.org/ieee-roundup/opinions/ieee-roundup/low-completion-rates-for-moocs
Strauss, V. (2013, December 12). Are MOOCs already over? Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/12/are-moocs-already-over/
Yang, D. (2013, March 14). Are We MOOC’d Out? Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-yang/post_4496_b_2877799.html
While not explicitly badged as an institutional MOOC, The Selfie Course nevertheless has all the characteristics of a MOOC in that it is easily (and massively) scalable, fully available online (http://www.selfieresearchers.com/the-selfie-course/), available in an open format for free, and is crafted by educators with a clear and accessible course structure. This chapter is co-authored by a number of initial writers of the six-week course, as well as one author who contributed during the AoIR workshop.
The Selfie course emerged from the Selfies Research Network, a Facebook-based discussion and research group established by Theresa Senft in early 2014, which has 2000 active members. Twelve members of this group collaborated to write a course about selfies which they could teach in various capacities in their local institutions, whilst making the content fully available online. The initial content was focused on identity; celebrity and branding; digital surveillance and biometrics; gender and sexuality; subalternity and otherness; and space, place and location specificities. The course was refined using social media and online collaborative authoring tools, and released publicly via a bespoke website. Importantly, the content was released under a Creative Commons license, explicitly encouraging reuse (far more open than many commercially-backed MOOCs).
This chapter will outline this production process in detail, as well as the differing ways the initial course played out in local contexts for the authors, as well as more broadly online. Importantly, the chapter will also outline the second phase which produced a further six weeks of the course via a workshop run at the AoIR conference, where the course was discussed, analysed, tested, critiqued, and ultimately extended. This chapter will also address the highly effective nature of this form of collaborative course writing, introducing the new content areas explored at the workshop. Moreover, after situating these processes, the chapter will conclude by demonstrating in detail how this approach to pedagogical construction, the distributed nature of responsibility and ownership (without fidelity to any one institution), and the commitment to open access and open redistribution, actually fulfils the ideals of MOOCs far more effectively than most offerings by the corporate start-up style offerings most widely discussed in the press and most loudly promoted by institutions. Finally, the chapter will conclude arguing that the Selfie Course offers a model for meaningful MOOC development which emphasises the direct sharing of cutting edge pedagogy and broader learning opportunities all developed via participatory design.
References
Kent, M., & Leaver, T. (2014). The Revolution That’s Already Happening. In M. Kent & T. Leaver (Eds.), An Education in Facebook? Higher Education and the World’s Largest Social Network (pp. 1–10). London & New York: Routledge.
Leaver, T., & Kent, M. (2014). Facebook in Education: Lessons Learnt. Digital Culture & Education, 6(1), 60–65.
Pretz, K. (2014, February 3). Low Completion Rates for MOOCs. The Institute. Retrieved from http://theinstitute.ieee.org/ieee-roundup/opinions/ieee-roundup/low-completion-rates-for-moocs
Strauss, V. (2013, December 12). Are MOOCs already over? Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/12/are-moocs-already-over/
Yang, D. (2013, March 14). Are We MOOC’d Out? Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-yang/post_4496_b_2877799.html
Based on fieldwork in the San Francisco technology scene from 2006-2009, I identify and describe these status-seeking techniques, how they are experienced, and their implications. Micro-celebrity involves creating a persona, performing intimate connections to create the illusion of closeness, acknowledging an audience and viewing them as fans, and using strategic reveal of information to maintain interest. Lifestreaming is the process of tracking and digitizing personal information and broadcasting it to a networked audience, creating a digital portrait of one's actions and thoughts. In a group of lifestreamers, the digital instantiation of personal information through social media creates a rich backdrop of social information to be scrutinized. Self-branding is the strategic creation of identity to be promoted and sold for enterprise purposes, promoted by self-help gurus and career strategists. These self-presentation strategies involve the creation of an edited self that can be safely viewed by a networked audience consisting of friends, family members, and co-workers. This self requires constant self-surveillance and monitoring and has real emotional affects, which constitute immaterial emotional labor.
Social media is thus undergirded by the neoliberal values of the Northern San Francisco tech scene. I argue that the prevalent myths of entrepreneurship and meritocracy are deeply gendered and contribute to a systematic devaluation of women's experiences, further undermining claims of egalitarianism and democracy.