Social Networking Site Assignments

Assignment #1

The objective for this assignment would be to understand how a celebrity’s celebrity is decided upon and showcased in society.

Day One:

I would first talk to the students and have a discussion about what is a celebrity. What are the characteristics a person must have in order to be considered a celebrity. I would write their responses on the board.

I would then have them throw out some names of people they consider to be celebrities. We would then compare these so-called celebrities to the list of characteristics we made as a class.

Day Two:

I would first have the students choose a celebrity they wanted to complete this project on.

Then, we will spend the hour in the computer lab finding current news stories or articles on their chosen celebrity. These articles could be more factual or more entertainment based (Us Weekly/Star/etc).

Day Three:

The students will again be spending the day in the computer lab. Today they will be looking up their celebrity on Facebook and Twitter. I want them to see what types of news or posts are posted.

One they are finished with the research, the students will be writing a paper comparing and contrasting the information they found on Facebook/Twitter and other “news” sites. I want them to describe how each set of news or posts changes the representation of that celebrity.

Assignment #2

For this assignment, I would like the students to try and figure out if the posts on social media sites are authentic to the celebrity.

In order to complete this assignment, the students will have to choose a myriad of celebrities and groups that they want to research. They will then have to take the time to study the posts found on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. They will need to notice the minute details that account for the differences in author.

They will need to write a paper using posts as their evidence and try to determine if the posts are authentically their celebrity or not.