Blog Post Assignment #2 Fall 2021

 CS 371-Social Media and Social Life

Fall 2021

Collaborative Class Blog Post Assignment #2







In Personal Connections in the Digital Age (page 24), Nancy Baym takes the position that the widespread diffusion of digital media forms and practices throughout our everyday lives is often the source of individual and collective “anxiety”.  More specifically, she argues (page 24) that:


Most anxieties around both digital media and their historical precursors stem from the fact that these media are interactive. Especially in combination with sparse social cues, interactivity raises issues about the authenticity and well-being of people, interactions, and relationships that use new media.


After foregrounding the issue of personal and social anxieties produced by digital media, Baym proceeds to discusses four theoretical perspectives on the causal relationship between technology and the social in order to help understand these anxieties: technological determinism; social construction of technology; social shaping of technology; and domestication of technology. 


In your post, chose one of these perspectives to discuss how the anxiety about the interactivity of new digital media is evidenced in one of the following:


  1. 1) the experience of Kayla in the portion of the film Eighth Grade that we watched in class last week; or  


  1. 2) the discussion on the effects of social media use in in the STATSCAN report, “Canadians’ assessments of social media in their lives” Canadians’ assessments of social media in their lives (statcan.gc.ca) (also linked to in the “Resources for Unit I module of the Content section of the MLS site); or


  1. 3) the discussion of Facebook’s suppression of its own research into the negative effects of Instagram on teenage girls as reported in the The Guardian (based upon the Wall Street Journal reportage) Facebook aware of Instagram’s harmful effect on teenage girls, leak reveals | Instagram | The Guardian (also linked to in the “Resources for Unit I module of the Content section of the MLS site)



The due dates for this assignment are Thursday, October 14, 6 PM for your original posts, and Tuesday, October 19, 6 PM for your responses

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