Analysis of Data
In regards to my data I have interviewed one person. The interviewee will be referred to as "M" and I; the interviewer will be referred to as "R". In this interview I will focus on her group use of Facebook to help with class assignments. I also looked at pieces of information I collected from Facebook's actual site. I have gathered four status updates and one event invite and will focus on the different reactions from their Facebook friends and how particular aspects of how the individual presented the status/event impacted the type of/number of answers they received. The names of these individuals will not be given in this presentation of the data.
In my interview with M we talked about how she used Facebook to help her with class assignments. She told me that she has used it before and one of the first times she used Facebook for a schools assignment was when she had to work on a group project and they made a Facebook group to communicate.
R: What do you typically use Facebook for?
M: For social networking with my friends, my family, my coworkers and my classmates.
R: Oh so you connect with classmates? What do you usually talk you them about?
M: Well for one of my classes we were working on a group project, and we made up a Facebook group with our class name in it and sent each other power-points and communicated through the Facebook group to get the project done
R: Oh okay, yeah I know a lot of college students do things like that.
M: Yeah it's very helpful because we all know we're going to be on Facebook at some point during the day (laughs)
R: That's cool.
She told me that it was very helpful because she was able to communicate with her classmate knowing they were right there and they would stay on the Facebook group interacting with each other until they were finished with what they intended to do. She also told me that because of the Facebook group she did not have to worry about meeting up with her group in person.
The language in this section of the interview was very positive. The part of the interview where she laughs after saying “we all know we're going to be on Facebook at some point during the day” shows that Facebook is a positive experience in a college students life and although many people use it for solely for social purposes it is a good place to connect with classmates who are working on the same/a related school topic. Her enthusiasm shows no matter which aspect of Facebook you use it can be a good and helpful experience.
This reminded me of James Paul Gee’s example of a discourse community because I believe that Facebook has two different discourse communities, one for social use and one for groups. The way Facebook groups communicate about school projects or other situations are completely different than what the public eye sees on their home timeline. On the discourse community of the Facebook timeline you see social events of your friends, pictures and statuses. When they post statuses about school assignments the status is usually very direct and does not require much effort but when you are involved in a Facebook group regarding a big assignment, such as the group M participated in, the information discussed within that group is confined in one the space of that group. If anyone from outside of that group were to join in they would not know what was going on and that is what makes it a discourse community.
I also found this interesting in regards to my literature source because they say that Facebook groups are not very helpful. The difference however, between my source and my interview subject was that in my source the professor asked them to create a Facebook group to connect with each other and my interview subject and her group chose to do the Facebook group themselves. While analyzing the interview and the literature source I came to the conclusion that when a professor orders students to do something, regardless of what it is, they are reluctant to listen because they want to do the project their way. When my interviewee did the Facebook group all of the students in the group agreed to this and were willing to take time out of their day to focus on their assignment through the Facebook group.
While conducting my research I also analyzed different ways people worded their statuses/events while asking for their friends help. Some people used formal language and some people used “social media language” meaning it was informal and they used emoticons in their statuses. Out of the five statuses that I analyzed only two of the statuses were formally used. The other three used social media language to try to get people to help them out. Another aspect that I found interesting was out of the five statues/events three of them were surveys and two of them were just questions stated as a status. There was also only one event as opposed to four statuses.
In one particular status all the individuals wrote was something very simple that did not give much detail about what needed to be done when referring to a link for her friends to take a survey, this only received one comment. Another individual posted a more formal status explaining to his/her friends what the survey entailed and about how long it was going to take. This individual used a little bit of social media language with two emoticons but most of her grammar was accurate and she had capitalizations in the right places. This individual received four comments on the status. While comparing each of the statuses I realized that people are not going to want to be bothered on social media sites with other peoples school work if it is not well explained. People assume that this discourse community is mainly for social use and if you post the school work you are doing without the proper punctuations and capitalizations people will be more likely to overlook it because it was not seriously presented. Unless the person puts a detailed description of what needs to be done people are not going to want to be bothered.
Out of the five statuses/events I analyzed three of them were surveys and two were just questions. While looking at the four statuses (I will talk about the event later) I noticed that more people are willing to comment on a status that is just asking a simple question rather than directing you to an external link to take a survey. In the two Facebook statuses asking to take a survey they only received a total of five comments together. When I analyzed the two questions that were posted they had a lot more comments and people willing to give their input. The formal/informal writing did not seem to come into effect here because both statuses had a lot of good answers.
I personally posted up a Facebook status asking “Should junk food be allowed in public schools? Why?” While analyzing the answers I received on the status some were helpful while other people who posted answers were taking it as a joke. One person posted a silly comment on my status that he/she knew would not help me in my paper, but other people posted very useful information. One person posted a very detailed reason answering my question that I found to be extremely useful and used this in my paper. It is answers like the one that this person posted that I used as a helpful resource in my paper. I received other very insightful responses and I was pleasantly surprised at how many people were willing to help me.
The one event I analyzed however got the most responses of any of the statuses. I believe that it is because you can explain that people will be willing to read, in an event then on a status. This individual gave an extremely detailed description of exactly what needed to be done, told us how long it was going to take and gave the time period we had to do it. This person received around twenty responses and each response was short and but gave exactly what the individual was looking for, which is all this person wanted.
While looking through Facebook I noticed that the people that have done this again were people that received an ample amount of responses the first time around. The individuals that did not receive good feedback seemed to be reluctant to do it again although, I did come across one person who attempted to do it again. This person changed their wording and although, they still did not use proper punctuation or capitalization they did receive a few more responses then they previously had.
This is important in writing studies because based on my analysis and observation on the Facebook statuses/events depending on how you word your status can affect the amount/type of responses you receive. Like I stated before, the way the statuses were posted when only asking question did not necessarily make a difference but when regarding surveys the way each description is stated and the directions given affected the amount of responses the person received. In regards to my interview subject the way you communicate with the other people in your group is important because if you are willing to be in the group you will get your work done but if you do not want to be participating in the Facebook group you will not be as willing to complete your work while in the group.
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