{"id":23,"date":"2018-02-12T09:35:44","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T14:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018\/?page_id=23"},"modified":"2018-04-07T14:22:18","modified_gmt":"2018-04-07T18:22:18","slug":"log-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/data-collection-logs\/log-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Log 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since last week, I realized the breadth of \u201cvlogs\u201d and the possible directions in which I could take my project. For example, the articles I have found show the community building aspect of vlogs, using vlogs to destigmatize issues such as mental illness, breaking down the traditional gender binary, raise questions about emotion as a commodity, etc. There are lots<\/em> of ways to take this, and I used week two to think about narrowing down my scope. After engaging with a few more articles, such as another one by Berryman and Kavka on the community of like-minded people that emerge from beauty vlogs, I feel that the best focus to take lies on the aspect of \u201ccommunity.\u201d And, I also considered how Ocejo\u2019s arguments and our class discussions on authenticity can map onto this. Some things I\u2019ve been thinking about include: do more \u201cauthentic\u201d vloggers (through openness, vulnerability, etc.) generate a larger following and community? Do the comments on these videos by the audience reflect more intimacy than the comments on videos that do not seem authentic? What is \u201cauthenticity\u201d in the context of vlogging? To me, these are highly relevant and highly interesting questions to raise. From here, I can consider the impact of revenue generated by these vloggers on YouTube \u2013 do more authentic content creators do so through \u201ccynical\u201d or \u201csincere\u201d performances through the lens of Goffman when money is now involved?<\/p>\n

Thinking in this way gives my project more of a self-contained feeling. That is, the initial data I collected was extremely overwhelming. However, through meetings with Prof. Greene and Beth Hoppe this week I have arrived at a stronger direction. Now, I am using the references listed for these articles (by Berryman and Kavka, Jacqueline Bell, etc.) to guide me to other similar<\/em> articles on the topic of community building and authenticity. Thinking more specifically has allowed me to get passed my biggest challenge: feeling overwhelmed and unsure on what my research questions should be. Now, instead of asking, \u201cwhere will vlogs take us?\u201d as I was last week, I am now asking, \u201chow do vlogs create communities surrounding these hot-button issues?\u201d and \u201chow does a content creator generate a perception of authenticity to the point where consumers are comfortable commenting supportive messages?\u201d and questions similar.<\/p>\n

Looking forward, I will start my paper with a historical point of view, first mapping the rise of blogs, how they came about, etc. From there, I will discuss the emergence of vlogs and the growing popularity before introducing sociological theory. Once I discuss the history, I will move into the discussion of sociological theory and thinking on topics like \u201cauthenticity\u201d and community building, as discussed in my articles. Finally, I hope to conduct a content analysis on a few particular vlogs. For this, I must give more thought as to how I will go about it, but, generally speaking, I want to analyze vlogs and their comments to try and generate my own thinking on the topic of authenticity and community. I\u2019m excited to have more direction and feel more on track now than I did even last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since last week, I realized the breadth of \u201cvlogs\u201d and the possible directions in which I could take my project. For example, the articles I have found show the community building aspect of vlogs, using vlogs to destigmatize issues such as mental illness, breaking down the traditional gender binary, raise questions about emotion as a … Continue reading “Log 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":15,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-23","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/23\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-sjablons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}