Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Facebooking In Distance Education: Constructing Virtual Communities Of Practice, Virginia M. Tucker Jan 2012

Facebooking In Distance Education: Constructing Virtual Communities Of Practice, Virginia M. Tucker

English Faculty Publications

The growth of distance education warrants a closer look at how virtual communities of practice form in asynchronous online classrooms. Prior studies have sought to identify a process to virtual community formation, which may vary depending upon the media used for collaboration. This microstudy examines how one student group in a distance writing course used the popular social media site Facebook to construct community and whether the stages of virtual community development were observed in this setting. Findings suggest that revisions might be made to our current understanding of the process of building virtual community within small groups. “Othering” and …


The Vital Non-Action Of Occupation, Offline And Online, Dylan E. Wittkower Jan 2012

The Vital Non-Action Of Occupation, Offline And Online, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Using an Arendtian framework, I argue that we can understand distinctive and effective elements of the #OWS movements as forms of non-action related to prior strategies of non-violence, the propaganda of the deed, and coalitions of affinity rather than identity. This understanding allows us to see that, while the use of social media in the movement does not provide the same affordances for building and maintaining power as physical occupation, and while online community clearly cannot substitute for physical community in many relevant and consequential ways, Facebook does nonetheless provide a platform well suited to maintaining power through these distinctive …


Facebook And Its Users: Using Grounded Theory To Understand Perceived Interactivity As A Constraint In The Rhetorical Situation, Katie Lee Retzinger Pruitt Jan 2012

Facebook And Its Users: Using Grounded Theory To Understand Perceived Interactivity As A Constraint In The Rhetorical Situation, Katie Lee Retzinger Pruitt

English Theses & Dissertations

The general term interactivity has been used in a variety of disciplines to describe phenomena that occur in website interfaces; however, definitions and explanations about what constitutes interactivity and how it functions do not consider the specific ways in which interactivity can function and be perceived by users in specific rhetorical situations. In this study, I address the problems with the literature about general interactivity in writing studies and in other disciplines such as computer science, advertising, marketing, and communication studies by distinguishing between two types of interactivity—functional and perceived. I situate the different types of interactivity rhetorically, which can …