This week I have chosen Emily Nassbaum’s “2007: New York: Do it Yourself” as the scholarly article which discusses the issue regarding the privacy of the internet, focusing mainly on the late teen/young adult generation.
There are several reasons that this article can be considered scholarly: it is peer-reviewed, the name of the author has been provided along with her credentials (she is an editor of New York Magazine), and specific quotations and real-life experiences are used to support the author’s claims. Moreover, a vast amount of copyright information lies at the end of the article. Besides all of this, the article claims to be academic and scholarly.
In the article, Nassbaum makes several claims that she ends with. She feels that young adults are now more prone and willing to publish information online that was once considered too personal for the world wide web. Her second opinion is that when people see your public life, they judge you. Nassbaum recounts a story of a Columbia University student, Xiyin. Xiyin began an online journal a few years ago that she now posts for public consumption (if of course you are her online friend). In fact, she began her journals simply being honest but now reveals to readers anything she thinks will keep them reading her entries. Moreover, Nassbaum looked at the social networking profile of Xiyin, finding pictures of her partying a few years ago. Xiyin is well aware of this fact, and she in fact supports it. It is with this piece of evidence that Nassabaum claims the avid internet users are starting to blur the lines between humiliation and fame. Things that would once mortify someone to see online about themselves is now a means for easier discovery of who they are. Hence, the more about you that is available, the more people see you, and the more people konw you.
In the article, a rhetorical message is obvious to readers and well conveyed. Nassbaum supports her view that internet users are in fact swapping personal lives and privacy for the chance at fame. If you read her piece in detail, you can see the concerns she has, an uneasy and almost disapproving tone flowing through the entire article.
I liked the article you chose, that would be a good topic for you 3rd paper. But you gave good descriptions of all the elements needed for this blog post.
ReplyDelete