I am currently a PhD student in the mass communication at the University of Florida. My current research explores use of online communities as created by social networks, especially social networks that correspond to communities in geographic spaces.
I have studied several different subjects in my academic career, doing undergraduate and graduate study in interactive media, information science, art history and design, history and philosophy. I have studied both applied technology and theory in these areas.
My study of interactive media has a long history and some of my work in online journalism and the Web goes back to the beginnings of the Web.
I am currently researching the ways people use online social networks, in particular in online communities where there is frequent interaction between members of an online community across both virtual and physical spaces. I am exploring how membership in an online community can motivate them enough to act, offline, in the same “physical” space served by the “virtual” space.
Local media organizations should cultivate this process because as people change their concept of ’self’ to include virtual facets, the ‘myspaces’ of the globe is where they will gather. I believe that creating public online community spaces and encouraging what I call “blended community” can serve as an antidote to forces of personalization working against the public sense of newspapers as foundation of information in a local community.
I have been interested in the Internet as a medium for journalism for almost almost fifteen years, and have been both a researcher and participant in the history of journalism on the Web.
In October, 1993, at UF’s Interactive Media Lab, I created what may be the first journalism-related web site in the world. During the mid-90s I explored different possibilities of journalism on the Web, before taking my interest into the corporate world.
In recent years my interest in history has combined with my interest in online journalism and I have become interested in documenting important moments in the history of journalism on the Web.
As an undergraduate I combined a general study of philosophy with a study of the history of art. As an art student I had paintings, photographs and prints exhibited in student shows and had poetry and creative writing published in student literary journals.
My undergraduate study influenced my later work as a board member for the American Institute for Graphic Arts, Orlando chapter. Although my work is technical now I continue to be a creative person who reads widely in art & philosophy for pleasure.