- Between weeks 8 and 14, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
During my meeting with Nicole, we selected roughly 15 scholarly articles to begin our research for our annotated bibliography and our literature review. We created a plan for data and methods section and talked about how we wanted to move forward with that process.
We talked a decent bit more about the final medium for our project, as we originally planned to do video interviews with our interviewees and possibly compile interview clips. However, we felt that this could be too much of an ask for them and could be difficult finding people who would be comfortable with this. We might switch our format to podcast and read quotes from interviewees to protect their anonymity but still discuss first hand accounts of student experiences.
As of now, I think the biggest challenge for the project will be created the interview script and starting the process of scheduling interviews. I want to make sure the process is well-organized and that we have a strong script to work from.
The first two articles I am looking at reading will explore how Tinder serves as not only a dating app but also potentially as a hook up app. Jin Lee’s piece “Mediated Superficiality and Misogyny Through Cool on Tinder” looks at how Tinder’s role in hook up culture promotes misogyny and reveals the sexism of its users. Freddy Mackee’s piece “Social Media in Gay London: Tinder as an Alternative to Hook-Up Apps” reveals how Tinder usage among gay men in London reveals a localized gay ecosystem for men in London, giving a sense of how Tinder can serve as either a tool of placemaking or exclusion.
Looking towards next week and the future of the project, we will start to gather information from the articles for our literature review and annotated bibliography, create an interview script, and begin to conduct interviews with students. I hope to have worked through at least two articles by the end of next week and to have started working on the interview script.