Danah Boyd

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Danah Boyd

Boyd at the Web 2.0 Conference in 2005
Born November 24, 1977 (1977-11-24) (age 31)
Flag of the United States Altoona, Pennsylvania
Nationality Flag of the United States American
Occupation Blogger, public speaker, writer
Known for Sociality, identity and culture in social networks

Danah Michele Boyd (or danah boyd, born danah michele mattas[1] in Altoona, Pennsylvania, November 24, 1977[1]), is an American academic, researcher, and blogger best known for her research on youth and social networking sites. Since 2003, she and her research have been quoted in several different articles in media sources such as NPR,[2] Wired, MSNBC, USA Today, Newsweek[3] and The O'Reilly Factor.[4] She was also the subject of a major profile in The New York Times in 2003[5] and the Financial Times in 2006.[6]

[edit] Biography

Boyd grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Altoona, Pennsylvania,[7] and attended Manheim Township High School from 1992–96. According to her website, she was born danah michele mattas, "spelled all funky because my mother loved typographical balance"[1]. But after her mother's divorce and subsequent remarriage, her family changed their names to Beard. Once she reached college though, she chose to change to her maternal grandfather's name, Boyd, as her own last name and eventually settled on giving her name as danah boyd, "to reflect my mother's original balancing and to satisfy my own political irritation at the importance of capitalization."[7][8]

She became interested in computers through her younger brother, who was learning how to build computers in his teens, and as of 2009, is working at Microsoft Research. Boyd's initial ambition was to become an astronaut, but after an injury, she became more interested in the internet.[7] She has an "attraction to people of different genders," but as stated on her website, identifies as queer rather than lesbian or bi. "I very much attribute my comfortableness with my sexuality to the long nights in high school discussing the topic in IRC."[1]

She initially studied computer science at Brown University where she worked with Andy van Dam, and wrote an undergraduate thesis on how "3-D computer systems used cues that were inherently sexist".[7] She then pursued her Master's degree in sociable media with Judith Donath at the MIT Media Lab. In 1999, she worked for the New York-based V-Day, first as a volunteer and then as paid staff. She eventually moved to San Francisco, California, where she became associated with individuals involved in creating the new Friendster service. She documented what she was observing via her blog, and this grew into a career.

She advanced to Ph.D. candidacy with a designated emphasis in new media in the UC Berkeley School of Information in 2006,[9] with Ph.D. advisors including Peter Lyman (1940–2007) and Mizuko Ito. Her dissertation was entitled "Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics", and focused on the use of large social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace by U.S. teenagers.[10] Boyd's research is funded by the MacArthur Foundation. During the 2006–07 academic year, Boyd was a fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California. She has been a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society since 2007, [11] and in September 2008, Boyd joined the faculty of Microsoft Research New England, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[12] Boyd is also co-director of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a group of Internet businesses, nonprofit organizations, academics and technology companies organized at Harvard University.[13][14] She is also involved with a very large three-year collaborative ethnographic project funded by the MacArthur Foundation and led by Mimi Ito; the project examined youths' use of technologies through interviews, focus groups, observations, and document analysis.[15][16]

Boyd has written over a dozen academic papers and op-ed pieces on various facets of online culture,[17] and has presented papers or been a speaker on the subject at major conferences such as SIGGRAPH, CHI, Etech and the AAAS annual meeting.

Boyd, Danah (June 24, 2007). "Class Divisiona". http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html. Retrieved on June 13, 2009.  </ref>

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Boyd, Danah. "a bitty autobiography / a smattering of facts". danah.org. http://www.danah.org/aboutme.html. Retrieved on November 2, 2008. 
  2. ^ "Teens Create Their Own Space Online". National Public Radio. February 1, 2006. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5182960. Retrieved on March 30, 2008. 
  3. ^ "Walking a New Beat: Surfing MySpace.com Helps Cops Crack the Case", Newsweek: p48, April 24, 2006 
  4. ^ Boyd, Danah. "Press and Mainstream Media Appearances". danah.org. http://www.danah.org/press.html. Retrieved on March 30, 2008. 
  5. ^ Erard, Michael (November 23, 2003). "Decoding the New Cues in Online Society". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E7D6173AF934A15752C1A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved on March 30, 2008. 
  6. ^ Bowley, Graham (October 27, 2006). "The High Priestess of Internet Friendship". Financial Times. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/59ab33da-64c4-11db-90fd-0000779e2340.html. Retrieved on March 30, 2008. 
  7. ^ a b c d Debelle, Penelope (August 4, 2007). "A space of her own - Encounter with Danah Boyd". The Age. 
  8. ^ Boyd, Danah. "What's in a Name?". danah.org. http://www.danah.org/name.html. Retrieved on March 30, 2008. 
  9. ^ Kopytoff, Verne (April 25, 2004). "One-Stop Way to Read News, Blogs Online: RSS Allows Users to Get Free, Automatic Feeds". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/25/BUG1U9ES301.DTL&type=business. Retrieved on March 30, 2008. 
  10. ^ "Taken Out of Context -- my PhD dissertation". zephoria.org. January 18, 2009. http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/01/18/taken_out_of_co.html. 
  11. ^ Boyd, Danah (July 23, 2007). "Berkman Fellowship". http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/07/23/berkman_fellows.html. Retrieved on July 23, 2007. 
  12. ^ McCarthy, Caroline (September 22, 2008). "Microsoft hires social-net scholar Danah Boyd". CNET. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10047795-36.html. Retrieved on January 12, 2009. 
  13. ^ "Internet Safety Technical Task Force Members". Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Harvard University. http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/isttf/members. Retrieved on January 9, 2009. 
  14. ^ Sullivan, Julie (December 17, 2008). "Teens' use of online porn can lead to addiction". The Oregonian. http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2008/12/teens_use_of_online_porn_can_l.html. Retrieved on January 9, 2009. 
  15. ^ "MacArthur Foundation Project Summary". http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.4773555/k.27DE/Mizuko_Ito.htm. Retrieved on January 9, 2009. 
  16. ^ "Final Report". The Digital Youth Project. http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report. Retrieved on January 9, 2009. 
  17. ^ Shirky, Clay (February 28, 2008). Here Comes Everybody. Penguin Group. pp. pp 224–5. ISBN 978-1-59420-153-0. 

[edit] External links

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