Review of the work of writers

d) Danah Boyd

Danah Boyd's Website contains a lot of information about her and her work in education. Danah looks closely at social networking websites such as Facebook, MySpace and YouTube and how students engage in them.

Danah also has a blog, which contains even more information about her works, plus more work on Web 2.0. Her blog is very active, with a number of posts per day in some cases. Interestingly, her blog dates back to 1997 which has a focus back then, still on social interaction. (I have not read all her posts, but I imagine they follow the line of social interaction and online tools such as myspace and facebook appear as soon as they were created!)

Danah's website also contains all of her research papers which are free to read. I decided to read one about myspace, which contains some interesting statistics. For example, in 2004 PEW research found that 87% of 12-17 year olds had internet access, while in late 2006, more than half of teenagers in this age group had online profiles. These are very significant statistics in terms of social networking websites and teenagers using them. It demonstrates an obvious connection that these sites are extremely popular among teens and teachers must acknowledge this in the classroom.

Social software is playing a key role in society, as Boyd acknowledges in saying: "It [social software] is altering the organisation of social life." (This is a quote from this page.)

"Danah Michele Boyd (or danah boyd, born Danah Michele Mattas in 1977), is an American academic, researcher, and blogger best known for media appearances where she speaks about social networking sites such as Friendster and MySpace. Since 2003, she and her research have been quoted on the subject of social networking in dozens of different articles in media sources." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danah_Boyd)

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"Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life." danah boyd. MacArthur Foundation on Digital Learning, Identity Volume (ed. David Buckingham). MIT Press.