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

Thu Sep 30 07:29:44 PDT 2010

Devin:

I think that Danah is absolutely correct in her assessment (as she usually is on this board -true- I am a big fan of her work too). My Ph.D. is in Higher Education because Howard L. Simmons was the head of Middle States Accreditation as the Ex. Dir. For more than 20 years and he was able to guide me into a trans-disciplinary approach and the importance of critical thinking, evaluation and competency based learning. Since higher education is pretty much the one major that links all of the others it made sense to me and I figured that I could work with him. Dr. Simmons in turn introduced me to my academic mom, Dr. Rosemary Gillet-Karam who is huge in critical theory, feminism and critical race theory. She is a genius and she was able to get me to show connections with my work in nearly every discipline. She was also a former college president as was one of my other advisors so they taught me the art of politics, diplomacy and fundraising to support one's research. Yes, I had a terrific background as a national producer/writer/filmmaker and I had worked in Hollywood, the Hill and the White House on many assignments and I found that all of these things literally converged. Danah, you are so spot on with your comment! I admire those folks, and I work well with them and that is the key not the designer degree (although they are nice to have). Your research could put your school on the map.

Chris A. Heidelberg, Ph.D.
Loyola University and
CCBC

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of danah boyd
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 12:32 AM
To: Devin Gaffney
Cc: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Graduate programs for "internet studies"?

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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------

"taken out of context, i must seem so strange" -- ani
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/
http://www.danah.org/
@zephoria

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