My Digital Mentors

For choosing my digital leaders or influencers in my field of interest, I decided to go with a writer and journalist since I am focused on the communication field.

The first digital mentor I would like to introduce is Iana Murray. I chose her as one of my digital leaders because I consider her to have an inspiring career at a young age and have followed her work for quite some time. She is known to be focused on entertainment journalism (specifically film, TV, and music) and has had her work published in W Mag, Vulture, The Cut, and GQ to name a few. Additionally, I enjoy reading her work and interviews because of her stylistic writing and relatable tone.

One of the social platforms I analyzed was Twitter/X (@ianamurray) as this is how I first stumbled upon her many years ago. Through looking at her profile, I can see that she is quite active because she tweets several times a day; however, it never seems to go overboard. She posts pictures once a week - either of herself attending festivals or of events and memes, and also posts witty one-liners. She converges both her professional life and her personal life on it because while she does talk about work-related information, she also writes sarcastic jokes and opinions as well. Regardless of how personable she appears; I never seem to find anything controversial. Because she is quite young, she has the personality of someone in their 20's that you would expect but she never seems to cross the line of unprofessionalism.

Another social media profile I reviewed was her LinkedIn. This showed me basic information about her experiences, along with a portfolio. She has never posted on LinkedIn so this shows that she doesn't quite use this actively for networking purposes. However, this did give me insight into her professional career and helped me discover that she wrote for Netflix.

She displays leadership through posting about her work and experiences while also being a humble, relatable figure with an accomplished career. This is why I would consider her a digital leader because in a world of influencers and nepotism, it is nice to find someone in the journalism field that has made a name for herself at a young age.

The next digital leader I want to focus on is Taylor Lorenz, a journalist and writer of the new book, "Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Power and Influence on the Internet." I recently read this book and it was very thought provoking so I decided to look more into the author. As someone who hopes to do research in digital communications when I one day pursue graduate school, her career and work has given me a lot of insight into the field of study.

Some of her credentials include her work as a social media editor for the Daily Mail and a technology reporter for: Business Insider, The New York Times and the Daily Beast. She is now currently a columnist for The Washington Post, as well as a published author for the book aforementioned.

Upon my first impression of her Twitter/X profile (@TaylorLorenz), I saw that she had a very high following count, showing that she is active and involved online and many of her recent posts were regarding her newly published book. She frequently retweets other online reporters and is also not afraid to share controversial opinions related to politics and trending internet topics. Some of the leadership I see displayed here is that she shares important news coverage for current topics and also highlights serious issues regarding the COVID and online misinformation.

From my own personal perspective, I do not see anything extremely concerning but this could be due to bias, since I agree with many of her opinions post online. From an objective point of view, I can see how some may find many of her opinions disagreeable, but she does state them in a professional manner. Furthermore, her replies are turned off which is probably a good idea to prevent the nature of twitter trolling that can come with the territory, especially in the Twitter world.

Another social profile I reviewed was her Instagram. Much like her Twitter/X, all of her recent posts are articles highlighting her new book. She also frequently posts reels with clips from a podcast. I noticed that her comments are open on Instagram and while she does receive a lot of support, there also seems to be many negative comments attacking her. However, she does not seem to acknowledge or engage in these comments which shows maturity. There will always be hate and negative comments on opinions so this is quite hard to avoid for anyone with a public social profile, which is why I don't see any issues regarding how she presents herself online. Employers or other organizations may not love when an online figure has negativity surrounding them, but because she does not engage in it, I do not see the blame shifting to herself as much.

Her profiles did not change my opinion too much on her but I did not realize how public she was on social media and how involved she was in current politics and events. Both digital figures reinforced my want to have a more private social media presence but they also taught me how to engage if I decide to go public again as a professional in the future. In communications, sometimes having an online presence is important but my main takeaway is to always conduct myself appropriately and to not feed into negativity online.

Re-curating My Portfolio

A portfolio has been a vital part of my studies as a communication student and has been proven to be quite useful in marketing myself for internships and future jobs. As each semester passes, I realize the importance of keeping it current and curated, so I have made some changes as I begin my senior year at Old Dominion University.

I re-created this site from my old WIX site because I felt that it needed a different template that catered to my professional and academic needs. My original site used all original content without a template and I felt that it was difficult to add content and edit. I realized that a simplistic design with fonts and a color scheme that fit my personality would suit me better in the long term!

Some of these changes included updating my home page to keep it more concise and to use it as a home base. Previously, I had each section added to the home page along with the tabs for individualized options, but realized this was repetitive. I also updated my resume, skills, about me, and creative portfolio sections as I have gained more experience over the summer.

The following questions are to answer for COMM 495 (Digital Communication) regarding creating and curating my e-portfolio:

1. What was the easiest part of setting up your Wix account?

I love that there are templates that provide us with so many options and has so many elements built into the platform.

2. What was the most challenging part of setting up your Wix account?

While it is amazing that there are so many options, it can be quite overwhelming figuring out how to design and curate for both professional and academic needs while also keeping a personal touch.

3. How would you describe what CMC is?

CMC, or computer mediated communication, is what I would describe as the various ways that humans communicate online and the social behaviors associated with technology.

4. How would you describe the role of CMC in your personal and professional life?

CMC is a very important role in my personal and professional life because it is so vital for my everyday communication. In my personal life, I use social media daily to keep up with current events and to check in with friends and family and also use this professionally because I communicate with various departments for work online as I work in a hybrid environment.

a. What are some of the pieces of technology and/or apps you use most often for each area?

In my personal life, I use Discord, Instagram, Facebook, and Gmail often and in my professional life I use Outlook, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint very often as well as Canvas academically. This technology includes my laptop, desktop computer, and cell phone.

5. What questions do you have at this stage of the ePortfolio project?

I do not have any questions as of right now for the ePortfolio project but am open to any feedback on my resume or porfolio.