Determining My Peers Favorite Social Media Platform

In determining my peer’s favorite social media platform, I followed James P. Spradley’s concepts of explaining its explicit purpose, giving ethnographic explanations, and ethnographic questions (1979). Through these explanations and openness shared between the interviewer and informant, my peer and I were able to maintain an environment of a friendly conversation throughout the interview, which Spradley suggests is extremely important in making an informant more comfortable and willing to talk. My peer determined their favorite social media platform to be Tumblr. Tumblr is a blog site that allows for users to create their own blogs and then follow any number of blogs that they would like. From pictures to videos to quotes, Tumblr has†¦show more content†¦In using emotions to spread news or a message, Ruth Behar states the effectiveness of developing an emotional connection (1996). My peer stated, â€Å"I can post or repost from TV shows that I like, news events that I find important, or movements I feel strongly about.† Being able to have an emotional connection to understand where my peer or any individual is coming from because of their strong feelings for a particular topic better enables an ethnographer or myself to take an objective perspective. Valerie Matsumoto would conclude that a better understanding of the use of media would be through becoming an â€Å"insider† and developing a personal connection, which would drive the researcher (1996). Tumblr sets itself apart from other social media sites in its focus on everything and anything, instead of focusing on an individual’s life. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook tend to focus on a person’s everyday life and their feelings on the past, present, and future. Tumblr creates a space for people to anonymously post anything they want to. Spradley would conclude that the vast variety of information available through Tumblr could easily be used to immerse oneself in the social media culture (1979). Most individuals who use Tumblr are active several times a day, and in a way, immersing themselves in the social media platform. People begin to find favorite blogs to follow because of their similar interests and points of view. Because of this unique