Methodologies

I chose to study the Facebook group "Sowerby and Luff's Fully Optamised Social Media Network" because this group is showing that there is an increasing removal of barriers between the audience and the media they are consuming.  I did not isolate any particular individuals but observed the general activities of the whole group, which, incidentally, only a very small number of the members of the group choose to participate in the activities of the page. I did not isolate any one particular person's patterns because activity in the group fluctuates by day and often by week, with very  few highly active members posting on a semi regular basis.

So far I have only collected data on posts made, post likes, comments, and comment likes. The data was collected through browsing through the page and selecting material from the week between the release of two shows. I analyzed the data by looking at how many post were made and how much of the content was used in the show following the date the content was added. I chose to observe the activity of the group because I noticed that people who had not been active before often had posts go unnoticed by the other group members, and I felt that my presence of active participation might halt conversations that already existed in the group. This study falls into the tradition of online ethnography.

Data Memo #2

In this data memo, I looked at one week of activity on Sowerby and Luff's Fully Optamised Social Media Network. I examined from October 5-10, 2013. Though I only examined five days, it was quite a lot of data to process (26 posts, 25 comments, 9 comment likes, and 11 post likes). This was a particularly active week. All data was gathered at 12:43 pm Alaska Standard Time on October 10, 2013. The reason for choosing these dates was because of a deadline, but also included the fact that Sowerby and Luff released epsiode 92 of Fat Chance early: the episode was released on Friday instead of Sunday. Interestingly enough, this fact was not discussed by the community. The post that Brian Luff made the post announcing the new episode's release, it receive several likes but only one comment. This post to me seems really important, and would potentially merit more discussion, such as people coming back to it after listening to the episode and discussing things, but few people acknowledge the post and move on to discuss other things in the group.

This graph shows the activity of individual members of the group from October 5 to October 10, 2013.

I found it very interesting to see how much people were interacting and how directly they were interacting. These graphs were generated from a data sheet that listed out information on every post (who posted, what time they posted, where they posted from when that information was available, who liked it, who commented, who liked the comment) The data sheet is still somewhat incomplete and I have recently noticed that when I changed my written data into illustrated data, I missed a few people's activity. I plan on revisiting the data sheet and posting it later with complete data, including information of if the commenters are responding to each other, and checking to make sure my data is current up to date and accurate.

Until that time, it is important to notice something there are more posts and comments than any other way of communicating using the Facebook interface. (even with the data that I have found I missed when creating the graph and pie chart, the difference will more than likely not amount to very much) This information is very interesting because if it is a microcosm of Facebook, in my experience, there should be more likes, most all of my posts and the posts I see that my friends make, often likes out number comments,. However, as the pie chart below shows, over 72% (37% of which are posts and 35% are comments) of the communication that happened in the group this past week happened actively: no passive liking.

This pie chart shows the percentage of what activity was from October 5 to October 10, 2013

Active communication in the group, even if it was of a sarcastic nature, shows not only the interplay of audience with the show, but how the audience interacts with each other. If someone is repeatedly ignored or is infrequently recognized, this may point to the fact that this person does not post or comment much and is not an active part of the group. There is often a larger attention to paid to the members of the group who post frequently or have posts featured on the show, or post concerning the show (with the revised or continued data, I will show these numbers). This attention, may point towards the idea that the group is seeking attention from Sowerby and Luff, or that they are merely commenting on an advertised story. Furthermore, it may show that the people who are posting the most and receive the most attention, may be more in touch with the subject matter that this particular affinity group is attracted to.

Furthermore, the people who post more and receive more attention, increase their activity, and form, in a sense, a perceived identity of more "in-tuneness" with the group. This forms a sort of prestige for these people, despite the fact that they are interacting in a fan group on Facebook for a comedy podcast. In fact, I found myself when reading through the posts, more tempted to look at the links and posts made by people who's names reoccured several times. I may have simply been searching for more data, but it also felt more important to look at their posts, perhaps in the misguided belief that the stories they posted would be featured in the show. Furthermore, posts that received more likes were not only interesting statistically, but in relation to the show as well.

As I mentioned before, I had some problems when creating my analysis and the graphics, so I will be going back and reexamining my findings and regenerating these images. However, I do assure you that the missing data is very small and will more than likely not increase the percentages too heavily. 

Data Memo #1

First I would like to apologize for the lateness of this post: I have had technical difficulties and have just managed to resolve them.

This is my data sample:

All names and images of people besides Sowerby, Luff, and mine will be censored for the privacy and protection of the individual. Who the person is has less to do with my research as opposed to how often they post and interact with the show.

It is a screen capture of a post to the Sowerby and Luff's Fully Optimised Social Media Network, on Facebook, by a fan of the show who will be called SK. SK posted this link, http://www.gigapixel.com/mobile/?id=79995, to the page, and continued a conversation from many podcast throughout Sowerby and Luff's podcasts about how much "Big Brother" is watching people. This post,  was then featured on episode 90 of Fat Chance and was discussed by Georgina and Brian. SK posted the link the same day that the episode was released (Spetember 22). The link is a photo of a group of people outside a hockey arena for the 2011 Stanley Cup. The photo was taken with a very powerful camera, and allows one to zoom in on the faces of the people in the crowd. 

This post is an excellent example of what my research focus is. Sowerby and Luff have allowed fans to interact with the show, mostly by answering questions and submitting stories, through email, but a few years ago the opened the Facebook group, which has allowed a broader range of content to be submitted, plus a higher level of fan interaction because of the social network context. Furthermore, this post helped shaped the show not only by being part of the content, but created a connectedness, because as we see Georgina comments, "Never go out without lipstick, that's the rule" on the post but also says the same thing on air, potentially at the same time. We also see that not only does Georgina comment on the post it self, but she likes a comment made by NH. Furthermore we see that Georgina is not the person to generate interest in a comment because SK liked the comment first then Georgina liked it (Facebook shows the first like last putting the first like on the left starting the sentence).

Georgina not only interacts by commenting, but also by liking.

The only other comment that has likes is Georgina's comment, which garners interest not only from the person that posted the first comment, but from someone that had not posted a comment in the conversation and not liked the post or the previous comment. This interest in Georgina's comment, might mean that people in the group see things that Georgina and Brian post or say as more important than the rest of the group's. This attention, may have to do with Georgina and Brian's digital capital: they are what is now termed as "Internet Famous" and are thus higher profile. Furthermore, 

Georgina's comment is the first comment to receive any likes.

Another facet of this conversation is that though this is part of Facebook, the comments are all at a higher level of grammar than one normally sees on Facebook. There is no misspelling, or misplaced grammar, or missing punctuation (one person does use two question marks). The tone of the comments is conversational, but also higher than the usual "freaky," "cool," "OMG" type comments one would see on their own newsfeed. This level of correctness in English shows that the group is either aware that they are being observed by strangers, and/or they are all very well educated in English correctness.

One interesting thing about the post is that though people are interacting by commenting and liking they are not directly interacting one with another: there are several questions posed in the comments but they all remain unanswered. Admittedly, the first question was rather comical and rhetorical, there were others that potentially merited attention and answers. It would be interesting to see if all questions posed in the comments remain unanswered.

Purpose of this blog

This post is a proposal for my digital literacies project.

 I have chosen to study the Facebook group, "Sowerby and Luff's Fully Optimised Social Media Network." This Facebook group is a gathering ground for the fans of British comedy duo Brian Luff and Georgina Sowerby. Luff and Sowerby perform comedic news parody podcasts and perform live comedy. The group has a current roster of 904 global members, with less than a quarter of the members participating in active discussion. Ascertaining the ages and genders of the members of this group is difficult, due in part to the increased privacy measures enacted by Facebook for their patrons. 

Brian Luff and Georgina Sowerby

The general interest would seem to be comedy and especially unusual news stories. These stories encompassed strange happenings in the world and are often centered around animals: in the past they have covered stories such as Panda Porn (pornographic films created by a Chinese zoo to increase the libido of Pandas). These humorous and odd articles often create a lot of discussion in the Facebook group. It will be my endeavor over the course of this project to examine the interplay between the Facebook Group and the Podcast (Brian and Georgina's Fat Chance) and see the relationship between the post in the Facebook Group and the Podcast: do the post in the Facebook group simply reply to the podcast or create new discourse that is incorporated into the podcast. 

As a long time fan of Sowerby and Luff, though I have somewhat drifted away from their projects, and someone who used to occasionally participate in their show, their group interests me because at the surface level it seems like a microcosm of Facebook: the group participants seem to post the same type of items, links, photos, videos, to the group that one would expect to see on their newsfeed, only they deal specifically with bizarre items and happenings. Sowerby and Luff's group is an interesting phenomenon because it takes the idea of comical news stories and shares it with a global audience. 

There website is: http://www.sowerbyandluff.com

You can download their podcast from iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/comedy-365/id77811053?mt=2

About Me!

I am a first year graduate student pursuing my MA in English at University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA). My main areas of interest for my degree are, 19th century American Literature, Queer themes in Literature, and composition, specifically how literature is composed.  I plan at pursuing two Ph.Ds in English (one specializing in Queer Theory and  one in Composition Theory) with the long term goal to be a Literature professor, Literary Theorist, and Writer. I graduated in May of 2013 with my BA in English concentration Literature with a minor in History. My love of Literature and the Humanities were fostered through my Home School education. Despite my love of the Humanities, I entered college below level in writing, but worked diligently to improve my writing skills in my first year. This experience has also fostered a love of helping students learn and improve their basic writing skills.

I am a member of Sigma Tau Delta, and English Honor society, and serve as an officer of my campus' chapter, and I serve as an officer in Understory, a club at UAA that focuses on putting forth an annual creative arts magazine showcasing the best of Undergraduate visual art and creative writing at UAA. I was published in the the 2012 issue (you can find my story on page 44), and I was editor of the 2013 issue. Creative writing is one of my passions, I was featured in a creative writing showcase in 2012 (my reading starts at the 19 minute mark, and am intermittently working on two manuscripts. I have a few short stories and random pseudo-academic essays/articles featured on my personal blog.