Meet The Social Times Team: Hi, I'm Lauren and I See The Media In Social Media

Hi, I'm Lauren and I'll be your guide to the medium of social media here at Social Times. I scour the web (starting with my perpetual 1,000+ entries in Google Reader and some choice news aggregate services) for news about social media in action. I have an insatiable curiosity about how social media is changing our world, and you'll find this manifests in articles about politicians fumbling their tweets or non-profits experimenting with virtual fundraising. If you're a curious sort as well, I'm here to shed some light on my eclectic interests and background in the social media space. My first love that led me to social media was literature. I've been an avid reader and writer all my life, and in my late teen years happily dove into a meaty English undergrad full of 19th century British literature and post-modern critiques of the human condition. However, I felt that literature on its own wasn't enough for me, and I paired my English major with a double in Political Science. And thus a spark sprang up in the embers of my curiosity - media studies became my new obsession. Just how did Kennedy manage to look so gosh darned good next to Nixon in that infamous debate? And how does a phrase like "Just watch me" enter the Canadian lexicon with so much force (Wikipedia it, if you aren't familiar with Canadian politics)? Questions like this still push me to know more about how politicians use (some might say manipulate) media to project an image - and how the media pushes back. Along with my undergrad studies, my saturation in all that is tech propelled me towards social media. I had a Facebook account back in the days when it was open to only college students. I was playing MMORPGs before girl gamers became cool. And even before that, I was the first kid in my class to use a digital planner. Looking back, it only seems natural that I would want to explore the cutting edge of the mashup between technology and media. Coming back around to Social Times, I hope to be someone you can trust to continually question and explore the medium of social media. Specifically, I'm interested in several facets of social media use: political, non-profit and educational. How are these powerful entities using social media to change our world? And how does social media change them? I'm also interested in how traditional media is responding to this new threat/opportunity, and I'll also throw a smattering of social games, consumer media and other topics in for good measure. If there is anything about social media as a medium - its messaging, censorship, how it is used to communicate - that you want to see covered here on Social Times, I'm your girl. You can reach me at dugan[dot]lauren[at]gmail[dot]com, or send a message to the Social Times team.

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Meet The Social Times Team: Hi, I'm Lauren and I See The Media In Social Media

Lauren Dugan

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Lauren Dugan