Projects per year
Abstract / Description of output
This paper considers the social value of anonymity in online university student communities, through the presentation of research which tracked the final year of life of the social media application Yik Yak. Yik Yak was an anonymous, geosocial mobile application launched in 2013 which, at its peak in 2014, was used by around two million students in the US and UK. The research we report here is significant as a mixed method study tracing the final year of the life of this app in a large UK university between 2016 and 2017. The paper uses computational and ethnographic methods to understand what might be at stake in the loss of anonymity within university student communities in a datafied society. Countering the most common argument made against online anonymity – its association with hate speech and victimisation – the paper draws on recent conceptual work on the social value of anonymity to argue that anonymity online in this context had significant value for the communities that use it. This study of a now-lost social network constitutes a valuable portrait by which we might better understand our current predicament in relation to anonymity, its perceived value and its growing impossibility.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 92-107 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Learning, Media and Technology |
Volume | 44 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 27 Feb 2019 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 Apr 2019 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- anonymity
- ephemerality
- social media
- community
- campus
- datafication
- higher education
- digital
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Dive into the research topics of 'The social value of anonymity on campus: A study of the decline of Yik Yak'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 1 Finished
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"A Live Pulse": Yik Yak for Understanding Teaching, Learning and Assessment at Edinburgh
Osborne, N., Bayne, S., Alex, B., Grover, C., Connelly, L. & Tobin, R.
1/09/16 → 31/08/17
Project: University Awarded Project Funding
Profiles
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Sian Bayne
- Moray House School of Education and Sport - Professor (Centre for Research in Digital Education)
- Centre for Research in Digital Education
- Institute for Education, Community & Society
Person: Academic: Research Active