Posted by Malene Charlotte Larsen in Blog, PhD.
Today it’s been three years since I started ‘My PhD Blog’ and wrote my very first post. Wow, time indeed does fly when you’re a PhD student.
Given that the blog is now three years old, I should have handed in my dissertation by now – actually, my PhD scholarship officially expires today(!). Luckily, my university has been kind enough to grant me with a couple more months to finish it. My New Year’s resolution for 2010 is therefore to spend as much time in my office as possible and be able to hand in the dissertation sometime around March. If that happens it looks like there is a position as an assistant professor waiting for me – and with that a lot of teaching, which I look forward to. I also look forward to having the time to blog in grater detail about my research findings.
Happy New Year to all readers and commentators of this blog. I wish you all the best in 2010!
Posted by Malene Charlotte Larsen in Academic, Papers, PhD Data, Social network sites, Youth Culture.
I have a new paper out in the latest volume of the journal MedieKultur. The paper is called ‘Social network sites and digital youth culture: When young people practice friendships online‘ (‘Sociale netværkssider og digital ungdomskultur: Når unge praktiserer venskab på nettet’). I regret to say that the paper is in Danish, which will probably discourage some of you from reading it. I can, however, provide you with an English abstract:
During the past few years, hundreds of thousands of Danes have created personal profiles on websites such as Arto, Facebook and MySpace. With the emergence and popularisation of these sites, we have witnessed a new media concept: social network(ing) sites. As is often the case with new media, teenagers have been the first to take social network sites to heart. In this paper I discuss the concept of online social networking and describe how social network sites are used as part of everyday teenage life to maintain social relations. I do this, firstly, by presenting a number of concepts that I consider to be important in relation to young people’s use of social network sites. Secondly, I highlight some results from my own research on 12-18-year-old children and adolescents’ use of various social network sites, including Arto.com, which has been Danish teenagers’ preferred venue on the Internet for a relatively long time. Using empirical examples, I analyse and discuss how social network sites are an integral part of the young users’ friendships and social lives. The article is based on four years of ethnographic studies.
The paper does not really contain any of my newest PhD results (since I wrote it a year ago), but I am using the paper in my dissertation as part of my chapter 3, where I define and frame my research topic.
My PhD Blog 