Associate Professor of Anthropology, Texas State University
Contributor, Platypus, The CASTAC Blog
Research Interests
Digital Ethnography | Ethics | Ethnography and qualitative research methods | Gender | Performance | Science and technology | Virtual worlds |
About Nicole
I am anthropologist who explores contemporary social issues related to youth including social media, gender and identity, body image, obesity, and socio-emotional well-being. Most recently, I have examined self-presentation, emotional expression, and sociality among college students on social media. Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, this project also explores ethical and methodological challenges of conducting long term participant observation in social media. Check out my recent co-authored (with Mimi Nichter) book from this project: A Filtered Life: Social Media on a College Campus (Routledge 2022).
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Contributions to Platypus, The CASTAC Blog
View all of Nicole's posts on Platypus, The CASTAC Blog.
Digital Multiples and Social Media
In this post, we unpack the meaning and many works of creating and maintaining digital multiples, a term we coined in our recent ethnography, A Filtered Life, to explore the multiple, dynamic expressions of self across online contexts (Nichter and Taylor 2022). This concept emerged from our ethnographic research with more than 100 college students exploring sociality, emotional expression, and online identity work. Our methods for this study included in-depth interviews, focus groups, writing prompts, and long-term participant observation in students’ social media sites. (more…) (read more...)