The presentation of Self via Social Media

Posted on by
1

Abstract

Self Presentation is an aspect that every individual should possess and in presenting a professional presence online, a platform should be created for that practice. This is where the social platform LinkedIn and an institution’s e-portfolio come into play. They serve as a way for individuals especially students still in the prime of their college career to practice professional presentation. My project serves as the epitome to do so successful and in a manner that can potentially lead to employment. We live in a society with very public platforms for the distribution and preservation of our personal image online. Social media affords us the opportunity to be front and center in our very own curated editorial spread. The way we interact with our families, our work persona and the various discourse communities we are associated with, all contribute different aspects of our personalities. However, we may question whether we should project our real personality online.

With ePortfolios, students can give employers and undergraduate/graduate schools a fuller, richer picture of themselves. They can include their essays from their courses; they can include course syllabi to explain the course content; they can add pictures and sounds to enlarge their audience’s picture beyond the written word. An ePortfolio can essentially be used as a learning tool for self-presentation.

Online spaces or social media platforms centers around the presentation of self and impression management that users of the web want to portray in their online presence. Self-presentation refers to conveying oneself with the help of information or visuals that other people can view about a particular individual. In order to practice the effectiveness of self-presentation, I’ve decided to join the social platform of LinkedIn to produce an e-magazine for my peers to use as a guide so they too, can successfully present themselves online. Because I am a college student and college students alike are constantly making strides to obtain opportunities in their field of study, I believe LinkedIn is a great job-seeking tool used to present oneself professionally in hopes of getting employment. LinkedIn is not your average social media platform; it may look like Facebook but the content shared on the site is far more relevant and significant to landing that dream job. Students are constantly struggling to find employment and LinkedIn is a great way to start as long as they present themselves in a professional manner. Those who opt out of the LinkedIn route may find satisfaction in their e-portfolio where they can professionally present themselves by showcasing their academic work throughout their college career. With self-presentation comes strategies needed to be professional for both the real world and an online presence. Through utilizing my LinkedIn account a social platform to get ahead in the professional world, I have found there are specific attributes that are linked to not only a professional profile page but the fortune to make connections with the right people and gain opportunities that was once out of reach. With my e-magazine, students are invited inside to take a closer look at what it means to present themselves appropriately in a professional realm.

Below you can find:

Final Project Reflection

E-Magazine of How to Present Oneself Professionally Online

and finally The Write Up

Final Project

Posted on by
2

ABSTRACT 

Twitter is a multi-modal and fluid platform that allows users to generate and consume content at a rapid pace. Producing relavent content on a fast moving site such as twitter can prove to be a challenge. In researching and determining strategies that are suggest to be beneficial in producing content with high engagement, a trial testing a variation of these approaches was formulated. Though there are several different approaches one could take four mainstays appeared throughout. Several sources that offer tips and strategies to build engagement are, Forbes, Business Insider and the NY Times. Though their approaches vary they share several commonalities. By utilizing hashtags, cross posting content and sharing exisisting content the Twitter analytics project showcases how the strategies at hand played out when applied. Over a period of four weeks four strategies were combined and applied to a personal twitter account to gage the validity of each one. Combined in a short period of time the experiment was moderately successful, resulting in a slight increase in following and a notable increase in engagement views per tweet.Through the trial and error of applying these strategies it stands to reason that not all of these suggested approaches work or are viable to apply to smaller more personalized accounts. Therefor it is crucial to note that not all of the content that is popular on social media follows or adheres to the tear of strategies most often proposed. While conducting this engagement experiment several factors came into play, such as, time constraints, frequency of posts, currency of the information being transmitted. In summary of this experiment several key things can be noted. The timeline to building a solid user engagement is lengthy an cannot be determined over weeks or even months it more realistically takes a year or more, strategies are geared toward businesses or entrepenures and that without proper promotion user content is lost fairly quickly after being posted. This experiment is relevant in determining the approach a future social media composer or student may take when seeking out a path to increasing their own social media presence or engagement.

 

View my write up here

Download (PPTX, 5.38MB)

 

Download (DOCX, 158KB)

 

 

Mastering Storytelling in Photojournalism

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract

Over the past few decades, new media technologies such as smartphones, tablets and other devices have changed storytelling and the ways stories were once delivered. Due to the shift in new media, there are new ways stories are shared through social media sites such as Facebook(an online social networking), Twitter (an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called “tweets”),Instagram (is an online mobilephoto-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms) and blogs (a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order).

A popular site that uses storytelling and visual rhetoric through various social media platform isHumans of New York, a photo blog by Brandon Stanton. The photo blog introduces viewers to various stories that explore issues such a sexism, freedom and loss just to name a few and in doing so has vastly changed storytelling. The photo blog shares unique stories via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and their site which affords viewers and user of those online communities a chance to connect and engage. Often times many of these stories receive over 1,000,000 views and were broadcast on local news station. In an effort to understand how the stories mediated through Humans of New York become successful and afford users a chance to engage, I will analyze how the stories become successful and assess their best practices.

By determining their best practices, I will use their best practices to produce three images on the subject matter loss and populate these images via my personal pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and personal blog Black Attire Aficionado and monitor user engagements with the subject. The quantification of user engagement will entail monitoring the sites and record and analyze the different ways users interacted with the image. Essentially, by using their best practices, I believe I can produce user engagement to Humans of New York but on a smaller magnitude. Finally, by understanding user engagement on different social media sites, one can tailor the message for a specific audience which can contribute to a more successful story delivery.

 

ePortfolio

Proposal

Write Up

Class Presentation 

Project Reflection

Social platforms for Deliverables

Image 1: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Black Attire Aficionado

Image 2: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Black Attire Aficionado

Image 3: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram 1 & 2 and Black Attire Aficionado

 

Analytics/ Screenshots can be found via my Dropbox

Search Engine Optimization

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract

The challenge of having a great website is bringing people to it. Why is this important? Whether the website is a business or just for recreation quite often no traffic means no sales. At the very least, no visibility. Having a high-ranking can be critical to the success of a business as it makes it easier for website to be found. The fact is, if a search engine cannot find a site or add a site’s content to the database, there is potentially a missed opportunity. But in order to get people to visit websites that are unknown to them, search engines rely on queries. These are words entered into a search field and produces a list of sites that are ranked on their relevance. A list of results that help the user find exactly what they are looking for is then generated. Yet there are no guarantees that a website will come out on top in a search or even have the traffic that can help to make this possible. So then what is the best way for getting traffic to a websites? While there is no conclusive answer to this question, by understanding and using search engine optimization (SEO), it is possible to achieve a higher ranking on search engine return pages (SERPs).

This project identifies SEO techniques used to optimize websites and evaluate the potential advantages. This project also analyzes two websites for style and word content and uses comparison tools to compare the performance. The findings in this project conclude that there are many ways to optimize a website and by doing so, it helps to increase traffic to the site. Although there are many ways to accomplish optimization, the most important aspect is content. Finding a way to make an impact and consolidating relationships with readers will help to make optimization easier and it is up to the website owner to dertermine what it can help increase the visibility and help boost rankings.

 

Download (PPT, 3.79MB)

Download (DOCX, 17KB)

 

Write Up

 

Signed Off.

Posted on by
Reply

The Vision For ‘Signed Off’

– A Social Media Detachment Experiment.

Social media has become a growing part of every day. Social medias are websites or in the recent years applications that allow users to create, share, and participate in online social networks. Users invest time and money into building their presence online, and continuously pour efforts into perfecting that presence and drawing attention to it. Jobs have arisen due to the demand of strategies on how to the best encourage participation and attract attention in online social media sites for companies and their products. With social media now being such an important part of life with human growth, interaction, development, and relationships all at its feet; the question of how does it affect us arises.

 

Signed off  is a final project experiment which I subjugated myself to undergo for my ENG 2720- Writing with New Media class. The task of this experimental project embarked was to completely disconnecting myself from all social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumblr, and Twitter. This was designed with the hopes to successfully and adequately capture how strongly social media affect a persons’ attention and participation structures, along with the effects it has our psychological being. All of which will be justified and supported through worthy research materials of various mediums. The end-result will be presented in the form of a digital diary blog hosted on a separated WordPress site which will be linked to this e-portfolio site under the child page ‘Signed Off’  Digital Diary.

 

After a testing period of two week, with the support of research material, the written aspect, and the aggregation of photo and video, I hope to prove how that social networking sites are a large contributor to the decline in generation Z’s cognitive ability to process, find, and read information whether video content or text, to take part in face-to-face contact and interactions, to lack social skills, to display signs of attachment and addiction, to lack the ability to deal with problems without the need for mediation communicative applications, as well as to crave or demand the need for instant gratification in all aspects of life. ‘Signed Off’ hopes to shine light on the ways social media has removed human behaviors from humans and led them to being to best functioning individuals in online spaces.

Project Proposal 

E-portfolio – Proposal 

Deliverables 

E-portfolio – Signed Off Digital Diary

WordPress – Digital Diary Blog 

The Write Up  

E-portfolio

Introduction

Understanding Attention Structures

Understanding Participatory Structures

The Impact & Effects

Downloadable Version

Project Presentation 

E-portfolio – Presentation Landing Page 

Downloadable Version

Project Reflection

E-portfolio – Reflection Landing Page

Downloadable Version

Final Project Write-Up (Portfolio) Tips & Checklist

Posted on by
Reply

Framing/Structure
You should introduce your project as an intervention in understanding some larger aspect(s) of new media composing (e.g., successful storytelling via social media; detachment from social media’s affects on participation/attention; composing content that is optimized for search engines; presenting yourself professionally online on a variety of platforms; increasing following/user engagement via Twitter). Structure your write-up according to your claims/contributions/conclusions about your project (not necessarily according to what you did in week 1, week 2, etc.). Your write-up should be composed on your OpenLab ePortfolio, and should include your multimodal deliverables and links to your new media composing experiments (e.g., your Twitter, blog, videos, etc.).

Everyone’s write-up will look slightly different, depending on the particulars of her project, but each one should have 1) a focused Introduction section (that introduces the topic/project and its significance: this is similar to the completed abstract), 2) body paragraphs that provide background information & discussion of your project–each paragraph should have a clear/focused topic sentence (claim) and specific, concrete details/examples–integration of research–in support of these claims (these sources are both the outside research you’ve done and that data you’ve produced through your new media composing experiments); 3) Conclusion; 4) Works Cited. There should also be with logical connections/transitions among sentences, paragraphs, and ideas (claims): rather than just compiling different parts of your project, but rather you are synthesizing them into a whole.

Synthesis/Revision
Keep in mind that this project was scaffolded through the last two months, through a number of in-class workshops & low-stakes assignments, from a series of drafts of the Proposals (including vision, deliverables, timeline, initial research), Annotated Bibliography, ePortfolio work & design, and Progress Reports (which all had weekly in-class presentations too). All of those smaller, low-stakes assignments were introduced to set the stage for this final project Write-Up, and that is your writing, and you can (and should) use that as material for your Write-Up (and reflection).

However, as we discussed in class many times, the Write-Up extends the thinking/writing you have already done on the project. Therefore, while you should of course feel free to build on what you have already written this semester in blogs, presentations, or other informal writing, for the write-up, you should not simply repeat what you have previously stated elsewhere (as we’ve discussed, Write-Ups without substantial revision would not receive credit). Remember that your previous work (e.g, reflections, progress check-in blogs) are only informal responses and, as such, may not be organized effectively or clearly/fully articulated. In addition, these earlier writings do not reflect the most recent evolution of your project, or the work you have done in the most recent weeks. You should use this material as freewriting (or even a rough draft), and then work to revise it into a coherent and detailed argument/write-up. There is a much greater emphasis on analysis and structure (and synthesis/framing) in this write-up than in the past, pre-draft assignments, and the goal (and challenge) of the write-up is to do the difficult, intellectual, rhetorical work of synthesizing all of your project work and presenting that in an effective way for your audience. This is a challenging task (as it it is with any writing assignment, such as an argumentative researched essay), and that is why we worked through a series of drafts–with multiple opportunities for feedback–along the way).

Resources
Remember that there are a number of Resources available on our OpenLab site, especially helpful information regarding successful writing strategies.

Remember, too, that you are resources for yourselves! The presentations each of you gave this week were really amazing, so if you’re having any trouble working on framing your project, connecting ideas, working on synthesis, I encourage you to look back to that (maybe even “give” the presentation again to yourself, recording it, and writing down the ideas), because things really came together wonderfully in those presentations.

Remember, also, that you are resources for each other. I encourage you to browse through one another’s projects, on your ePortfolios, to see how others are approaching the Write-Up and ePortfolio design (you might see things you like and find them helpful for your own work!)


Checklist: Wrapping it all Up
As we discussed in class, below is a “checklist” for your Final Project Write-Up (Portfolio), to help you as you work on revising your final drafts of that work. Best of luck with the revisions, and for all of your other projects and finals in other classes!

Download (PDF, 102KB)

Wrapping Up the Semester

Posted on by
Reply

This afternoon is our final class! A few things to keep in mind as we wrap up this semester:

Final Project Presentations (Part II) & End-of-the-Semester Celebration (yay!)
Today during class we’ll have presentations from Jodie & Mariah. Looking forward to hearing about your projects!

We will also be celebrating the end of the semester, so you’re welcome to bring in snacks to share with the class and we can enjoy refreshments during the presentations (I will bring in some goodies as well).

Final Course Reflections
As you know, your Individual Final Course Reflection is due by the start of class today, Th 12/17 (this is a mandatory–not optional–assignment). Refer to the Final Course Reflection page on our site for details on this assignment.


Final Project Grades / Final Course Grades
The deadline for professors to submit final course grades for the Fall 2015 semester is M 12/28 at midnight. Please wait to view your course grade online through CUNYfirst (I will not be giving out final course grades via e-mail).

Final grades are non-negotiable, though I am always more than happy to discuss them/your work with you at any point in person. If you would like to discuss any of your grades/receive additional feedback on your Project (project grades will be posted as a “private” comment to your Final Project posts on our OpenLab site), feel free to e-mail me to do so (we can always also schedule an appointment to discuss your work in-person when we return to campus at the end of January, when the new semester starts up).


Thank you, & stay in touch!
Finally, it was a pleasure to work with you all this semester. I wish you the best of luck wrapping up the semester and on your final exams, and in your future endeavors in the PTW major, at City Tech, & beyond. You all worked incredibly hard this semester, and I really appreciate your consistent effort and good cheer each week (especially for a 1 hour 40 min. class in a hot stuffy classroom, with only seven of us!). I hope you enjoyed yourselves and learned a lot about new media composing and critical thinking / reading / writing / reflection. Have a wonderful winter break & happy holiday season (best of luck in 2016!), & don’t hesitate to be in touch /stop by my office in future semesters to discuss your work in this course/beyond (or chat new media, or PTW, in general!), and/or to just say hi  :)

Mastering Storytelling in Photojournalism- Project Presentation

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract

Over the past few decades, new media technologies such as smartphones, tablets and other devices have changed storytelling and the ways stories were once delivered. Due to the shift in new media, there are new ways stories are shared through social media sites such as Facebook(an online social networking), Twitter (an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called “tweets”), Instagram (is an online mobilephoto-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms) and blogs (a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order).

A popular site that uses storytelling and visual rhetoric through various social media platform isHumans of New York, a photo blog by Brandon Stanton. The photo blog introduces viewers to various stories that explore issues such a sexism, freedom and loss just to name a few and in doing so has vastly changed storytelling. The photo blog shares unique stories via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and their site which affords viewers and user of those online communities a chance to connect and engage. Often times many of these stories receive over 1,000,000 views and were broadcast on local news station. In an effort to understand how the stories mediated through Humans of New York become successful and afford users a chance to engage, I will analyze how the stories become successful and assess their best practices.

By determining their best practices, I will use their best practices to produce three images on the subject matter loss and populate these images via my personal pages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and personal blog Black Attire Aficionado and monitor user engagements with the subject. The quantification of user engagement will entail monitoring the sites and record and analyze the different ways users interacted with the image. Essentially, by using their best practices, I believe I can produce user engagement to Humans of New York but on a smaller magnitude. Finally, by understanding user engagement on different social media sites, one can tailor the message for a specific audience which can contribute to a more successful story delivery.

Download (PPTX, 420KB)

Final Project Presentation

Posted on by
Reply

Download (PPTX, 9.28MB)

Online spaces or social media platforms centers around the presentation of self and impression management that users of the web want to portray in their online presence. Self-presentation refers to conveying oneself with the help of information or visuals that other people can view about a particular individual. In order to practice the effectiveness of self-presentation, I’ve decided to join the social platform of LinkedIn to produce an e-magazine for my peers to use as a guide so they too, can successfully present themselves online. Because I am a college student and college students alike are constantly making strides to obtain opportunities in their field of study, I believe LinkedIn is a great job-seeking tool used to present oneself professionally in hopes of getting employment. LinkedIn is not your average social media platform; it may look like Facebook but the content shared on the site is far more relevant and significant to landing that dream job. Students are constantly struggling to find employment and LinkedIn is a great way to start as long as they present themselves in a professional manner. Those who opt out of the LinkedIn route may find satisfaction in their e-portfolio where they can professionally present themselves by showcasing their academic work throughout their college career. With self-presentation comes strategies needed to be professional for both the real world and an online presence. Through utilizing my LinkedIn account a social platform to get ahead in the professional world, I have found there are specific attributes that are linked to not only a professional profile page but the fortune to make connections with the right people and gain opportunities that was once out of reach. With my e-magazine, students are invited inside to take a closer look at what it means to present themselves appropriately in a professional realm.

 

 

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Posted on by
Reply

Abstract

The challenge of having a great website is bringing people to it. Why is this important? Whether the website is a business or just for recreation quite often no traffic means no sales. At the very least, no visibility. Having a high-ranking can be critical to the success of a business as it makes it easier for website to be found. The fact is, if a search engine cannot find a site or add a site’s content to the database, there is potentially a missed opportunity. But in order to get people to visit websites that are unknown to them, search engines rely on queries. These are words entered into a search field and produces a list of sites that are ranked on their relevance. A list of results that help the user find exactly what they are looking for is then generated. Yet there are no guarantees that a website will come out on top in a search or even have the traffic that can help to make this possible. So then what is the best way for getting traffic to a websites? While there is no conclusive answer to this question, by understanding and using search engine optimization (SEO), it is possible to achieve a higher ranking on search engine return pages (SERPs).

This project identifies SEO techniques used to optimize websites and evaluate the potential advantages. This project also analyzes two websites for style and word content and uses comparison tools to compare the performance. The findings in this project conclude that optimizing a website can increase visibility and help boost rankings.

Download (PPT, 3.98MB)