This week I conducted two more interviews and continued looking for more sources. My interviews were with one sophomore and one senior. The sophomore I interviewed noted that she used Instagram to observe peers on Instagram that she would be connecting with prior to arriving freshman year. Following upperclassmen was also important to her so she could get an understanding of what social life was like during a normal year of school. Using Instagram serves as a tool for students to observe and form opinions of what life is like at Bowdoin.
My second interviewee also notes how during the pandemic, instagram served as a tool to stay connected with peers and see what people were up to. Alongside this she said that a lot of people judged one another on how they did or did not comply with COVID protocols. Students become a form of surveillance for one another in this way.
I also continued finding sources for my research. In “Curation: A Theoretical Treatment.” Information, Communication & Society, Jenny Davis provides a framework for the mechanism of curation in the digital era. Davis theorizes that “digital curation by disentangling productive curation from consumptive curation, addressing how people curate content that they share, and that which they consume” (Davis, 770). Individuals on social media platforms carefully select materials that they want to display. I found this study to be important to include in my research because I am looking to see how students construct themselves on Instagram and the selection processes they choose.
My next steps are to begin planning my website and the layout of it. I will also continue my interviews and comparing the data.