[Air-L] Graduate programs for "internet studies"?

Thu Sep 30 02:35:34 PDT 2010

Sharon - good advisors are not necessarily available only at the big name
universities...

And yes chatting with potential advisors and having a good academic record
might not always get you into  the university you dreamt of
getting into, but you may still work on topics and explore what you wanted
to in the first place if you looked around...

To the person who initiated this thread.

 I agree with dana about finding people you can work with and a
university/department that has enough resources to support you and your
inquiry.

 I suppose I should be advertising the program I direct now (the ACS program
at BGSU) where we have a Media and Cultural Studies track ...

but I cant say we centrally do "Internet Studies" whatever that may be these
days (and I say this as a still fully loyal member of AOIR :))

r

On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 1:23 AM, live <human.factor.one at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, well, we don't all have the good fortune to get into schools such as
> Berkeley after having chats with the advisors, eh? ;)
>
> But I agree - thinking about who you want to work with for a long period of
> time, and how they will let you grow in the academic arena, is quite
> important.
>
> Cheers,
> @SharonG
>
>
>
> On Sep 29, 2010, at 9:32 PM, danah boyd wrote:
>
>  Who do you admire?  Who do you want to work with?  PhD programs especially
>> (less so for Master's) are all about your advisor and your committee, your
>> ability to connect with your peers, and your ability go get a solid
>> foundation in various intellectual traditions that you can bring to the
>> table when talking about Internet dynamics.  My advice to all potential grad
>> students is to start by making a list of the scholars that you respect.  Go
>> to conferences in fields that you want to engage with (like AOIR) and meet
>> people.  Figure out who you think you could get along with.  And then build
>> out from there.  Programs are important but less so than individual mentors
>> that can help you through your intellectual inquiry.
>>
>> If it helps at all, I wrote this long post for folks interested in going
>> to grad school: http://www.danah.org/GradSchoolAdvice.html
>>
>> Personally, I didn't know what an information school was when I applied to
>> Berkeley.  (Heck, I still don't.)  But as soon as I met Peter, my beloved
>> advisor, I knew that it was the perfect place for me.  And I never would've
>> imagined that learning about how information is organized by librarians
>> would be at all relevant to my studies, but OMG has it been surprisingly
>> useful.  I should also note that what I admired about Peter had nothing to
>> do with Internet studies.  I admired his ability to think critically and
>> turn any idea upside down to see it from a different direction.  We talked
>> Gramsci and the role of activism in scholarship.  I taught him about the
>> Internet; he taught me how to look at it critically.  And he taught me the
>> value of playing good cop/bad cop in academia.   (May he RIP.)
>>
>> When I went to grad school, I didn't need someone to teach me about the
>> Internet; I needed someone to give me the room to study the Internet.  It
>> wasn't about the classes or the reading. It was about the critical thinking
>> apparatus.  And it was about having an advisor and a committee who provided
>> the intellectual backbone to do new research.
>>
>> So while there are great internet studies programs out there - and I
>> encourage you to investigate them - don't limit yourself by topic.  Focus on
>> who you want to work with, who you want to learn from.
>>
>> Good luck!
>>
>> danah
>>
>>
>> On Sep 29, 2010, at 12:52 PM, Devin Gaffney wrote:
>>
>>  Hey all,
>>>
>>> I just finished an exhilarating undergraduate program that gave me enough
>>> flexibility in order to study the impact/efficacy of Twitter during the Iran
>>> Election(
>>> http://www.devingaffney.com/-iranelection-quantifying-online-activism),
>>> but in order to pull it off, I had to really bend some of the institutions
>>> rules, and just barely got the necessary advisorship in order to study it in
>>> a reasonable way. I am looking to jump right back into school for the
>>> following academic year, and am trying to figure out which schools have
>>> which programs - it seems that the information/websites for all the programs
>>> that do exist are well ensconced within their respective institutions
>>> websites, which tend towards labyrinthine. Does anyone have a good list of
>>> institutions (US/elsewhere) where a Masters/PhD in fields either directly or
>>> otherwise closely related to "internet studies" (or "web science," or
>>> whatever term you use, as this even seems to be up in the air, as far as I
>>> can tell)? Obvious
>>>
>> ly, there are places like Citizenlab, Berkman, and OII, which all seem to
>> at least offer classes in some capacity, but are there any others i just
>> haven't found?
>>
>>>
>>> Thanks much,
>>>
>>> Devin Gaffney
>>> http://www.devingaffney.com
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> http://www.aoir.org/
>>>
>>
>> ------
>>
>> "taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani
>> http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
>> http://www.danah.org/
>> @zephoria
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
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>>
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
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>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
>

-- 
Radhika Gajjala
Director, American Culture Studies
Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies
101 East Hall
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH  43403

http://personal.bgsu.edu/~radhik