Number one argued that online communities have helped further the green movement. This was of personal interest to me because more and more I have streamlined my life to be more environmentally friendly and online spaces have really helped me with that. Especially since I have few family members and friends and essentially, face-to-face community to help and support me with this. I've written a paper and given a conference presentation and am planning a proposing a 200 level writing class around it, so this has helped me a lot.
Number two asked what happens to online spaces when they are no longer used or popular (i.e. AOL, Friendster, Geocities). I don't have any personal stakes in this. I think it may be too large in scope for me. I am currently taking a qualitative research methods class and I am having a hard time articulating the question in terms my professor and textbooks would like. This could be a problem. But I know there is something there. I just am not sure.
Number three deals with how people interact online in the face of a national disaster or catastrophe. Last year I began a project on using the Pentad on a series of Tweets that dealt with a school shooting in Alabama. It was cool to do because the dominant term was purpose, rather than technology as agency, which so many people would think it was. After the earthquate in Haiti, all sorts of people spoke up on Twitter and Facebook and asked people to donate or to do something little. I think this is important because so many people, even those who blog or are on Facebook are very dismissive of online spaces doing any good. I wonder when "going online" will be less of a dirty little hobby or timesuck and more of a respected practice.
So those are my ideas and I need to chose one at some point. With this qualitative research class I've been thinking a lot about the dissertation process. Which is important to think about, but I forget about my comps.
One step at a time I guess.
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