Meet the folks who make the Cyborgology Blog happen.
Editors
Nathan Jurgenson (@nathanjurgenson) studies the bottom-up turn the Internet has taken -what has come to be known as Web 2.0. Working with George Ritzer and as a founding member of the Prosumer Studies Working Group, he has focused on the topic of prosumption, how people are increasingly producers of what they consume (and vice versa). Currently, he is focused on the blurring of the on- and off-line worlds, especially how self-documentation using social media impacts the way we live our everyday lives. This has far reaching consequences, from issues of self-presentation and identity, exploitation and inequalities, surveillance and much else. Finally, Nathan is also an active musician in Washington DC. His website is: nathanjurgenson.com.
PJ Rey (@pjrey) is a Sociology PhD student at the University of Maryland. His research examines the “culture of hyper-visibility” that has developed in tandem with online social media. He argues that visibility may produce serious negative consequences for certain groups (e.g., LGBT persons, high school students, small towns, etc.), while simply augmenting the social capital of other technologically literate and high-status groups. Visibility has broad implications for the operation of power in society, becoming a mechanism responsible for new forms of social inequality. He also studies a variety of related topics such as labor on social media, online dating, and Internet use and well-being. For more information, visit: www.pjrey.net.
Regular Contributors
David A. Banks (@DA_Banks) is a M.S./Ph.D. student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Before coming to RPI, David spent four years getting his B.A. in Urban Studies at New College of Florida and is a proud board member of his alumni association. His research interests include space, place, cyborgs, and networked bodies. He cares very deeply about what built environments do to people, and what people can do to their environments. He is currently working under the NSF’s GK-12 fellowship program, teaching science in urban school districts and developing new learning technologies. David is also an avid star trek fan, an anarchist, a comic book nerd, and addicted to his twitter account. Find that account and other stuff at www.davidabanks.org.
Jenny Davis (@Jup83) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Texas A&M University. Her broad interests are at the intersection of culture and identity. She approaches this intersection from multiple directions, utilizing formal theory and experimental work, as well as participant observation and cyber-ethnography. Her social media project looks at issues of (hidden) identity work, community construction, and authenticity in a time of near constant connection and pervasive documentation. She was not previously a twitter user, but was broken down by the twitter feed surrounding the Theorizing the Web Conference and finally created an account.
David Paul Strohecker (@dpsFTW) is getting his PhD from the University of Maryland, College Park. He studies under Patricia Hill Collins and George Ritzer, focusing on issues of intersectionality, consumption, and popular culture. He got his BA in 2009 from Texas A&M University, where he studied under Joe R. Feagin, and wrote for the blog RacismReview.com. He currently studies popular culture, but remains interested in issues of race relations, white privilege, and gender inequality. He is currently doing work on the popularization of tattooing, a project on the revolutionary pedagogy of public sociology, and more theoretical work on zombie films as a vehicle for expressing social and cultural anxieties.
Sarah Wanenchak (@dynamicsymmetry) is a PhD student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her current research focuses on contentious politics and communications technology in a global context, particularly the role of emotion mediated by technology as a mobilizing force. She has also done work on the place of culture in combat and warfare, including the role of video games in modern war and meaning-making. More generally, she has long been interested in narrative and storytelling, and how stories work to shape wider social discourses. Along those lines, she occasionally publishes speculative fiction under a pseudonym.
