ENGL 680M: New Media

I recently created the following assignment for my students and given the subject of our class and recent discussions of avatars and social networking, I thought that I'd share This is actually three (related) assignments in one. The first has students analyzing their own Facebook entries; the second requires them to locate and annotate two articles pertaining to Facebook; the third requires them to create two avatars to represent different aspects of their self. Since these are business writing students, I asked them to create one avatar that represents their "personal" identity and a second one that represents their professional identity. (We've discussed the emergent popularity of social networking sites as tools for business networking. In class conversation we've at least mentioned Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, SL, and LinkedIn.) I'll share the results with you. Feel free to borrow and adapt the assignment. It will also be located on our Student Avatar site, so putting our url [http://www.studentavatar.com] in any online posting of the assignment would be appreciated.

Creating Avatars in the Business World

Many of you, I know, have accounts on Facebook and recently I've read quite a few articles about how folks are using Facebook. Of particular interest are the articles that discuss Facebook as a business networking tool. Not only are young professionals continuing the networking that they began when using Facebook in college, but many people in older age groups are also joining Facebook. A search on the Business Week website pulls up fifteen pages of content dating back to 2005. You can find the list of articles, sorted by date, here; and this is barely a drop in the bucket compared to all of the articles available in other publications. Just in the past two months I have read, in print publications, several articles concerning Facebook, including: Wired magazine, MIT's Technology Review, and Newsweek. These are just a few examples out of many and the number of articles found published on the web far outnumber these. Quite a few of these concern the negative repurcussions of some Facebook content. For example, the colleges who have used photos on Facebook to locate and then charge underage drinkers, like Brad Davis at Emory or students who are rejected for internships as a result of Facebook content. As business writing is very much concerned with ethos, I'd like for you to consider your Facebook entries in the context of both your present and future.

I've recently become better accquainted with Facebook and now understand how easy it can be to post information that those outside of your circles of friends might find questionable. I have a fairly bizarre sense of humor and find myself continually censoring that information because of audience awareness. Some of my friends are also my professors and most are colleagues, making me hesitant to post information that might cast me in a negative light. Interestingly enough, my F2F interactions are frequently uncensored. In other words, I'm more likely to divulge private information in person. Much of this is because of the permanence of writing. While I can delete an entry, it's almost impossible to completely destroy online content. Tools like browser caching, the Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine, not to mention the ability to save sites and take screenshots, all make online content difficult to destroy.

Given all of this information, I have an assignment that I'd like you to complete for our next two class meetings. This assignment has two parts:

1. Examine your current Facebook profile. What image does your profile convey? Is it an accurate reflection of how you see yourself? Try looking at it as someone who didn't know you might look at it. How would they construct an understanding of your identity based on the information included there? Is there content that might create a negative impression for your audience? You should answer these questions by posting a blog entry of at least 500 words. (You will need at least that much content to answer the questions.) Your blog entry should use specific examples and should include a link to your Facebook profile. Your analysis should be completed prior to class on Thursday, October 4th. Late submissions will not be accepted. This blog entry counts as two entries. [If you would rather not post it on a publicly accessible site, you may email the link to the class list, which you should have from previous emails that I have sent. If not, you can get that information from me.]
2. Choose at least two articles from the above and write an annotation for each. (The Business Week list has quite a few and you are also free to locate articles from other sources and annotate them.) Be sure to summarize, evaluate and create a bibliographic citation for each. You should include a working hyperlink to your articles. Your articles should be clearly relevant to the business world. This entry is due prior to class on Thursday, October 11th. It will count as a single blog entry.
3. Using the information in the Creating Avatars and Images for your Profile handout to get you started, create an avatar that you think best reflects your identity. You should create two: one for your personal identity and one for your professional identity. Post both of these before class on Thursday, October 11th. (Early submissions will be looked upon favorably.) You can insert an image into a blog entry using the small picture icon on the far right of your rich text toolbar (this is a small picture of a tree and you must have rich text enabled in order to see it.) Along with your picture you should include 300 words or more discussing the choices that you made in constructing each avatar. Why did you choose these images to represent you? What qualities of your personality do they reflect? What are the differences between the two avatars and why are they different? (If you choose to create the same avatar for both, you should provide detailed reasons for that choice.) As with the above assignment, late submissions will not be accepted. This counts as one blog entry.

*If you do not have a Facebook profile, please speak with me after class to discuss your options.