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Blog Post #3 Research Gaps

There seems to be a good amount of research that discusses how technology affects maker communities. But as technology continues to evolve, so will methods of learning and connections among people and communities. Below are some research gaps that can be explored to further understand the nuances of technologies in crafting spaces.  The first is comparison that shows how maker communities existed before the COVID-19 pandemic and then changed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The perception is that many people picked up crafting hobbies and shared their hobbies online in an attempt to connect with other people online while people were quarantined and could not connect in person. In that moment, technology helped bridge crafting community gaps when in-person meetings were not being held. It would also be interesting to study how these communities continued to change when quarantining was no longer required. This research gap could be addressed with a qualitative study that does...
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Blog Post #2

I've pivoted to my second research topic about how crafting communities have adapted to digitalization. To be honest, this topic has been a lot harder to research. There aren't a lot of TPC sources about this, and I had to try a few different search word combinations to get anything to come up. For example, using the word "craft" or "crafting" doesn't guarantee that it's talking about "arts and crafts" because it could also mean writing as a craft. There has been a shift because of the maker movement, so I did try using keywords from that as well. To try to mitigate the lack of TPC resources, I tried to supplement with other resources that seemed more relevant. Tentative sources for Literature Review assignment: Crafting   TPC Sources Start-Up Nation: Studying Transnational Entrepreneurial Practices in Israel's Start-Up Ecosystem by Steven Frailberg https://journals-sagepub-com.libproxy.utahtech.edu/doi/10.1177/1050651917695541 Dissensu...
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Blog Post #1 Topic Interests

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One topic of interest I would like to explore is the prevalence of misinformation. What elements need to be in place in order for the rhetoric of misinformation to be effective? Our society has set up technology to operate in echo chambers, which become breading grounds for fake news, AI-generated content used for deception, and conspiracy theories that validate misinformation rather than contradict it. What are things that can be done to rectify this? Another topic that could be possible is the digitalization of traditional craft communities. How are these communities maintained even when people don't meet in person? How is modern crafting different from traditional crafting? What is the importance of maintaining these communities? Topic #2: Digitalization of crafting communities Goal: Understand how modern crafting communities are similar to and different from traditional crafting communities Questions: What are some challenges facing modern crafting communities? Do modern crafti...
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