Queerness & Theory

What I Learned

My capstone project has been a constant work in progress. I am absolutely amazed by how much information I have gathered about queer individuals who identify as Black on Instagram, YouTube, and WordPress. Their narratives inspire me and have already pushed me to be more open about sexual identities. We function within social constructs that often restrict and oppress. They are controlled by fellow human beings.

Theory can be viewed as a home base for organized thought. I have come up with a few of my own theories for the sake of this project. In turn, I have learned about the communities around us that I have heard so much about but still know very little of. I feel that I am growing closer to them by grasping terms, concepts, and realities that make up many experiences.

Queer theory helped me to hone in on my topic, and it continues to guide me on this journey. It embodies an academic take on a very expansive subject, and I thank all of its contributors for creating a framework that I could adopt to ultimately better understand myself.

A part of the reason why I chose this subject is because POSE, an eclectic FX television series inspired me to do so. This show explores the ball scene in the 1980s in trans and gay communities in New York. I often discuss its impact with friends and family because it challenges norms and humanizes people who should not have to fight for their humanity in the first place. But this is the United States of America. This is the world as we know it. So they endured more than many of us will ever understand. Race and gender play a significant role in the lives of its characters. The storyline reflects the real experiences of cast members.

I decided that I wanted to examine social media discourse and the expression of sexuality among people who identify as queer. I think that I will continue to develop this project beyond my studies at the Knight School of Communication. I believe that it is imperative that I do so because there is a very limited amount of information available about these communication dynamics.

I thank Dr. Bochantin and my classmates for being so supportive during this process. It has been a challenging learning experience, but definitely worthwhile.

Here is a copy of my approved research proposal for this project:

SSkinner_Proposal Draft 2_102018

I hope you enjoy!

Beware of Our Privilege

What I Learned

Global communication seemed so broad and faceless to me at first. We were assigned with the task of defining it. I think the point of this prompt was to help us to focus on its pervasive nature. I previously did not think of people when these two words frequently popped up in my academic career. They were championed but seemed to be left undefined. I thought of entrepreneurship because this is how they were framed at those moments. I thought of the world as a whole and what was represented across countries, not necessarily the individuals who comprised them.

We place so many people at risk, including ourselves, through some of the behavior we choose to engage in as digital citizens. Corporations approve of harm every day. We are reaching times in our world where we cannot reverse the damage we have done. Of course, families and individuals have already been impacted without many of us realizing the costs of our indulgence. The detriments of e-waste continue to weigh heavily on people around the world. In COMM 624, we discussed this extensively. In my first response paper for this course, I explained my position based on the facts I learned from our readings:

We [create and] operate technologies at the expense of communities who do not benefit from this use as participants or as citizens. Their health is [placed] at risk, and their livelihoods remain in question because workers dedicate their bodies to supporting their families. The production of our digital world has threatened and is “…threatening thousands of lives, rendering many environments uninhabitable, and contributing significantly to overall environmental degradation and global climate change” (Reed, 2014, p. 52). This is the main detriment of our demand for and consumption of new, fresh products. They are projected as beneficial advancements with positive attributes, but this is never paired with reality by companies that are looking to profit from up-to-date releases.

We also put our own identities at risk, especially young children who must learn how to navigate in these spaces with or without the help of guardians. As seen with recent Facebook scandals, individuals who have not created profiles are at risk because accounts exist in their name after their personal information was compromised for profit. We are faced with much content where we must discern truth and protect our names.

At the end of this excerpt, I discuss our online identities. Digital agency can be a liberating experience, but there are many limitations and concerns. Public accounts entitle strangers to information they can choose to use for the benefit or the demise of a person’s character. The digital world can be a very dangerous place though we believe that there are many measures taken to protect us.

References

Reed, T. V. (2014). Digitized lives: Culture, power and social change in the internet era. New York: Routledge.

Ethics in the Newsroom & Beyond

What I Learned

I knew that at some point during my graduate career at Queens University of Charlotte, I would address a situation that happened in undergrad. It shook me to my core. One of my professors repeatedly used a racial slur to prove a point in the middle of a lecture he chose to give early one morning, but he did not understand how offensive it was to do this. I knew that there was a reason why I felt bothered. That word had been used to strip living family members of their humanity along with my ancestors. I chose to let another faculty member know about it six months later. She told me that we could discuss this with a board at the school, and I did not want to take those actions.

I took to social media, specifically Tumblr, to air out my frustrations. Some members of my community expected me to be more rash and call him out in the heat of the moment. I wanted to. But what results would that have garnered? None to progress me or the people I represented so it seemed like a lose-lose situation. This is why I chose to focus on this incident in a presentation for COMM 613. Here is an excerpt of a reflective blog I wrote for this project:

Using Dr. McArthur’s Planning for Strategic Communication Workbook for Applying Social Theory to Professional Practice allowed me to gather important information from my recollections, leading me to understand them better from a strategic communication standpoint. I told other people of this experience, but I am always met with defeated attitudes. Friends and family often say that we can’t do anything about the prevailing systems that lead to what I experienced in the newsroom. However, I now understand how theory can directly apply to crisis situations such as the one I used for this presentation. I will continue to use Berger’s work to better understand the impact of these narratives.

Here is my actual presentation:

This project served as an outlet for me. I felt that I claimed my power by sharing this experience in a professional environment. I only hope that more people will take a moment to understand ideas outside of their egos. I hope that they won’t be trapped in their minds about what they expect racism to look like. Another professor asked if I had ever gone through any situations where race impacted my experience. I was dumbfounded at the fact that she felt it was alright to ask me this. This is why I speak out after I have felt so closed in by people who were supposed to be my instructors.

I know that I am speaking solely from my life, but a strong ‘us’ is implied through any work I commit myself to. I only hope that you are able to understand how significant this is at a time where divisive behavior unites hateful majorities.

The Writing Machine

What I Learned

Early on in my writing career as a high school student, I learned that there is no such thing as good writing. There’s only good rewriting. I continue to discover what this means for me as a scholar and as a creative. I am an editor at best and a writer at worst. I just so happen to craft a well-written sentence on the first try sometimes. This is a rare occasion.

Before beginning coursework, I had no idea that gender pronouns were a matter of concern in academic writing. ‘They’/’their’ is what we are suggested to use before assuming the identity of a practitioner, a theorist, etc. I was also confused about APA formats and the use of ‘I’ in research papers. I’d seen this be acceptable in psychology studies and was introduced to this idea in one course prior to my endeavors at Queens. My writing style changed for this reason.

I think that I got accustomed to writing for the purpose of delivering news where ‘I’ is only used to refer to where a person is standing to convey a message or how they received pertinent information. I had only written a few research papers in the required format. I honestly still have issues with citations, but I use templates.

The process of peer reviewing in a digital environment has allowed many to communicate strictly through written languages filled with abbreviated comments and questions. My classmates have helped me to restructure my strategies as an editor. I do my best to highlight each error I notice, but I do this in cycles. I approach the general content of the paper along with its order first, leaving comments where I feel changes could be made. Then I tackle grammar and punctuation. This is how I begin the editing process for my own work.

As an active digital participant, my audiences continue to develop, and it seems that the attention timeframe shrinks by the day. Loyal followers will view content no matter the length of the post or time of day, but engaging people I have not established a connection with has become a new issue to address. Sometimes it happens out of nowhere when I post relatable quotes and fun memes. As a social media manager, I am faced with these problems on an hourly basis. I created a Social Media Marketing Proposal for one of our courses for a creative organization I call home: GenreUrbanArts.com. I implemented it and produced astounding results. Now, I am in the process of reorganizing it for the purpose of maintaining and increasing engagement.

I have written so much over the past couple of years, more than I’ve ever written in short periods of time in my life. I have noticed that I rhyme without trying. I love it because I am an artist, and these are proud moments. The Knight School has encouraged me to be a more intentional writer. Quality will always outweigh quantity in this realm.

Digital & Media Literacy in the Information Age

What I Learned

I had the most difficult time using several digital tools in presentations for a few projects including videos and podcasts. My classmates and I asked many questions about this among each other as we referenced resources from our digital toolboxes provided by our instructors. I had experience with designing video and audio files as a news reporter at a student-run organization during my undergraduate career. But I knew nothing about recording a video for the purpose of using it in another video. I learned very quickly during this process. Take a look at a project I completed for COMM 616:

How did I do? 🙂 It was quite a task to adjust audio levels. I appreciated the knowledge I gained through this assignment because I have used these lessons for media in passion projects I take on.

Now check out this podcast:

Did you enjoy it? I incorporated many audio channels to make sure that I was able to create a fluid project. There were many hiccups as I recorded over and over. I was happy to interview other people and include them in this because it encouraged me to branch out and consider podcasts as a recurring future endeavor.

Throughout my experience at Queens University of Charlotte, I often challenged the idea that misinformation had to be as widespread and uncontrollable as many of the people around me suggested. I felt that we should all have a sense of what is accurate information versus a lie. Why can’t people just tell by the sketchy site names or the lack of spellcheck? Just because an article has a headline with a lower thirds graphics template that matches CNN’s design does not mean that it can be trusted, right? It was quite frustrating at first, but I had to realize that this was indeed a bias of a digitally literate individual.

What we view as credible sources are now in the business of publishing information first before triple-checking facts. We are able to create social objects to mirror those of resources that are often sought in moments of crisis and controversy. We can use our phones to tune in or to record our ideas. Not only do we use devices to access the facts, but we are also able to report across major digital platforms through blogs, podcasts and comments sections.

I have also learned that we must realize the power we share as digitally active individuals. We must recognize that not everyone around the world has access to digital tools. Not everyone is represented in these social spaces so we must also confront these disparities with solutions. We also discussed what is being done about this in local communities in some of our courses. However, I also wonder how the world would be without digital communication. Is the access for the greater good? Or does is make danger and chaos more imminent?

The Queen of Research

What I Learned

I discovered that my capabilities as a researcher had drastically improved between my work as an academic and an employee as I was reaching the conclusion of my first year at the Knight School of Communication. I used social media discourse to construct databases of information based on exchanges within organizational communication points online. First, I completed research on nonprofit communication in digital networks for a literature review. I found out that there is minimal research committed to this, especially because many nonprofits do not make use of social accounts.

I gathered posts from the Housing Justice League‘s Twitter account to examine how they maintain communication relationships within their communities. I conducted a content analysis where I learned the purpose of their existence in the digital world. They depend on one-way communication to capture the attention of supporters while engaging in two-way communication to emphasize their social efforts.

Social media research has become a huge part of my life so I am thrilled to continue to apply what I have learned through projects in these courses. Take a look at my textual analysis presentation from COMM 610:

A Theoretical Approach to Life

What I Learned

I can recall the moment when Theories of Human Communication arrived in the mail for the first course I took in this program: COMM 601. It honestly made me very excited to learn more about communication as a discipline. Class discussions assisted me with considering more diverse interpretations of communication theories. The guidance we received from our instructor offered us many opportunities to examine the framework of each theory we covered along with the approach of each founding scholar.

Everyone contributed their thoughts with examples from their lives. Sometimes I could relate to these instances, but others prompted me to empathize and analyze situations I had yet to encounter in my life. At several points in each course, news topics were frequently referenced. We often debated how these stories were told and how people responded to them around the world. Media theory explores aspects of social objects that we view and use to develop opinions along with other thoughts about particular subjects. We specifically focused on media framing and its impact on communities.

We obtain information from resources, and it is up to us to determine their validity. Whether we choose to do research or not, this information tends to travel through social networks online and offline. Much misinformation is promoted in the digital age through shares, likes, and comments. Media effects are highlighted in social media discourse each day through user-generated content (UGC). Whether we are talking about political stances or gossip, a news event or an idea that is circulating within channels is typically why we feel the need to reassert or reaffirm our beliefs. Sometimes these factors influence our understanding.

At the Knight School of Communication, I learned how the dynamics of discourse within and outside of an organization can determine its reputation among group members as well as nongroup members. I decided to research nonprofit communication because I desired to compare my previous experiences with organizations to those of the individuals from studies in this course. I also analyzed a sociocultural narrative in a film as ‘equipment for living’ for my final inquiry project.

Take a look at an overview to see what I chose to examine: