Homework Assignment #1

Dissecting a Research Article

Name: Jonathan Sykes

Homework 1: The components of sociological research and the empirical research report.

Article:

Zhao, Shanyang, Sherri Grasmuck and Jason Martin. 2008. “Identity Construction on Facebook: Digital Empowerment in Anchored Relationships.” Computers in Human Behavior 24: 1816-1836.

The main objective of this assignment is to familiarize you with the format of scholarly, empirical research papers. The format that the authors’ followed in this article is a guide for the research paper that you will write for this seminar. The questions included in this assignment ask you to identify and discuss the key components of the paper and to assess the quality of the authors’ arguments, data, methods, analysis and conclusions.

In your responses, use your own language as much as possible. If you quote directly, you must use proper citation format. I will deduct points if you do not use correct citation format.

Type your answers below each numbered item. Be sure that you save your work often so you do not lose anything. I recommend that you save an unaltered version of the assignment and refer to this on occasion to make sure that if you accidentally delete questions as you type your answers, you can re-include the question along with your answer on your final document.

Make sure that you answer all of the questions. Some numbered items include more than one question.

Remember to look up all words that are unfamiliar to you. This is very easy to do using Google or some other online source.

Part I: Introduction

1. Discuss the purpose of the authors’ research. Answer: The Authors plan on exploring the range of identity construction on “the proclaim” social website Facebook.

2. What do the authors mean by the term “nonymity”? Answer: The Authors describe the term nonymity as state or quality of being anonymous. Facebook is now a worldwide chat, meet and greet, social site within any environment.

Part II: Literature review

3. What do the authors mean by “identity”, “identity production”, and “identity claims”? Answer: Authors mean by identity as a self concept. Everything pertaining to thoughts and feelings. Identity production is where people on facebook have their information and accounts set up. Identity claims are where people have pictures of themselves for facebook users to view.

4. How has the Internet changed the “traditional conditions of identity production” (Zhao et. al. 2008: 1817)? Answer: Internet has changed identity production due to the fact that corporeal body is apart from social encounters inside of the online society or environment and becomes impossible to communicate with one another on the internet fully like an individual wants to interact.

5. What is the impact of anonymous online encounters on identity production? Answer: Viewers can not view people that are not allowed on their page to see who they really are or learn about them.

6. In what ways is the online world not entirely anonymous? Answer: The Online world is not entirely anonymous due to the fact that people, such as family members, friends, neighbors, etc can socialize outside of social sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. They can do so through emails, skype, etc. outside of social sites.

7. What is the meaning of the term “anchored online relationships”? Answer: Family, Friends, Colleagues, etc. communicate online.

8. In what ways does a nonymous online environment place constraints on identity claims? Answer: Nonymous will allow everyone to search for you or view any images, information, etc of that person.

9. What are the differences between anonymous and nonymous environments with regard to identity claims? Answer: Anonymous is not available to everyone. Anonymous is where anyone can wish to remain secret or silent in their own space.Nonymous is open field environment for internet/social viewers. Anyone can view, interact, etc with that person or view whatever is available for their eye to see.

10. According to the research cited in the article, did the nonymous environment of online dating sites “narrow the discrepancy between “actual selves” and “ideal selves” (Zhao et. al. 2008: 1819)? Explain. Answer: Actual self is the image and information of the action person. Ideal self is where some people lie about or proclaim an fantasy image of themselves to the viewer who wants to socialize with them.

11. According to the authors, what are the limitations of research on identity construction in Internet dating as regards the generality of findings? Answer: Internet dating is just what it means. It is proclaim as strictly only for meeting a person and pursuing more once they get in touch with that online person.

Part III: Focus of the present study

12. What are the authors’ expectations with regard to identity construction on Facebook? Answer: Their expectations are to research self image in an open evvironment online with facebook social site.

13. Why do the authors think that identity construction on Facebook will be different than on online dating sites? Answer: Facebook is different than online dating sites. Everyone now is using facebook, no matter if it is schools, colleges, businesses, etc. all are able to view, search, and create accounts for social contact, promote and create other images for viewers to see and experience.

14. What is the authors’ hypothesis? Answer: Facebook is more open online social site that online dating sites. People who create facebook accounts have more of a variety of people to choose from to socialize with and display images and pictures of themselves,etc.

Part IV: Methods

15. Who are the study’s subjects? Answer: A diverse group, African Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Indian-Americans, and Latino-Caribbean.

16. From where were the study’s subjects (the sample) drawn? Answer: The subjects were drawn from National Student Survey from university administration.

17. What did the researchers do to diversify the subject pool? Why is it important to have a diverse sample? Answer: They took samples from fraternity and sorority groups, honors groups and majors/colleges within the group and some non-majors and others came from social groups and student organizations.

18. What methods of data collection were used by the researchers? Answer: Interviews

19. How large was the researchers’ initial sample? Why was the final (resulting) sample smaller than the original sample? Answer: The large initial sample was 83. The final result was really based on facebook accounts own by certain groups of gender and race.

20. As regards gender, race and ethnicity (see table 1), would you say that the resulting sample is well-balanced? Explain. Are there any major differences with regard to gender, race and ethnicity between the initial sample and the resulting sample? Explain. Answer: From the looks of the sample. The table looks like it was well-balanced in my case far as race and gender is concern but there was a difference with the Indian and Vietnamese group but not much a big difference because everything balanced out in the sample group.

Part V: Results

21. What is the significance of Facebook’s “visibility rule” for the authors’ research? Answer: Facebook’s visibility rule is so that all facebook friends and schoolmates can actually look at their friends or family members page to view statuses, comments, pictures, information, etc.

22. How did the authors determine the types of audiences that Facebook users had in mind? Answer: The author determine if certain friends can view the page of the facebook user. Like if the facebook user made their page anonymus or have private profiles toward there facebook user.

23. Why do the researchers consider the display of photos and pictures on Facebook “implicit” identity claims? Answer: So that people that are searching for friends or family, etc on facebook can see who they are trying to find. An image of that person lets them know they have found the person they are seeking. Now, in some cases. Some people put up pictures that should not be on facebook because they are not suitable to be seen.

24. What were the most common ways in which the Facebook users expressed their “cultural selves”? Answer: By joining social groups or organizations. Displaying images of themselves relating to their culture.

25. According to the authors, what is the significance of the finding that Facebook users prefer implicit identity claims? Why, according to the authors, are implicit identity claims more common than explicit identity claims on Facebook?

26. What reasons other than the ones mentioned by the authors might Facebook users choose implicit identity claims over explicit ones? Answer: So that facebook users can actually portray themselves as the actually being far as their status and information is concern to other facebook users.

27. What were the most common self-images (i.e. personality traits) produced by Facebook users (list all discussed in the article)? What were some strategies that Facebook users used to show off their popularity? What were some of the strategies for showing off “well-roundedness”? Answer:

28. According to the authors, were the identities established on Facebook close to the identities users established in the offline world? On what evidence is this conclusion based? Do you find the evidence convincing? Answer: “Of course, not all identities constructed on Facebook are socially desirable. Deviance occurs even in a fully nonymous offline setting. Although institutionally anchored, Facebook encounters are mediated and the technological mediation can create a sense of freedom that encourages the limited expression of some type of “hidden selves” (Suler, 2002 J.R. Suler, Identity management in cyberspace, Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies 4 (4) (2002), pp. 455–459. Full Text via CrossRefSuler, 2002)” The evidence appears to be convincing but needs more information to support facts.

29. What aspects of identity were not commonly stressed by the Facebook users? Why do you think Facebook users in this sample refrained from expressing such identities or personal qualities? Answer: I believe that facebook users display certain images or certain information to actually either appear to be something there not or to either self portray an image or information to make them appear far more important or better than any other social facebook user.

Part VI: Discussion

30. What implications does the study have for understanding identity construction in society more generally? In other words, what conclusions about identity in society do the authors draw from their study of Facebook users? Answer: The study of Facebook users have proven that people can use facebook for any type of social communication with anyone. They have the choice of being annoymus or nonymus when it comes to releasing information, pictures, etc about themselves.

31. According to the authors, are the offline and online worlds drastically different? Explain. Are “virtual” selves so different from “real” selves”? Explain. Answer: “In a nonymous environment where individuals can be held accountable for their behaviors, people are more likely to present their selves as being in line with, or close to, normative expectations, whereas in an anonymous environment, either online or offline, where individuals are unidentifiable and thus cannot be held responsible, people are more likely to behave as they wish, ignoring normative restrictions” (Cinnirella and Green, 2007 M. Cinnirella and B. Green, Does “cyber-conformity” vary cross-culturally? Exploring the effect of culture and communication medium on social conformity, Computers in Human Behavior 23 (4) (2007), pp. 2011–2025. Article | PDF (182 K) | View Record in Scopus | Cited By in Scopus (5)Cinnirella & Green, 2007).

32. What limitations of the study do the authors address? Answer: I believe the limitations about social interaction dealing with facebook and online dating sites.

33. What future research directions do the authors propose? Answer: “Future research on this topic needs to control for the effects of individual characteristics while examining identity construction in different environments. Most studies on online self-presentation have been conducted using a single-setting design, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to rule out selection effects in cross-setting comparisons. There is also a need to employ multiple methods (e.g., interviews and surveys) within the same study so that the different aspects of identity construction can be examined in different ways” (S.Zhao).

34. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of this research? Answer: Overall I think the research was well organize and interesting facts about facebook . I do believe some more research could have been done to point out more facts in regards between facebook and online dating and other social websites.