Practicum Post 1

So my practicum project is on how minorities use the internet. I'll be honest, this wasn't my first choice. It was the third choice I wrote down on the sheet after sitting in the back of discussion and getting the sign-up sheet towards the end, and all the good ones were taken. Combined with my tendency to procrastinate (and the fact that our paper is due the same day I'm supposed to present), this was not a good match from the start, so even though I've been working hard on it, I'm just getting around to my first post today.

At the beginning, I started thinking about which minorities I wanted to study. This was harder than I thought it would be. I've decided to focus on Asian Americans, Jews, and homosexuals (and other members of the LGBT community).

On Wednesday I interviewed Colton Boettcher, an openly gay junior here at UW. He is currently in the process of putting together a bi-weekly web series for the Daily Cardinal called Underexposed Overexposure, the first episode of which is scheduled to air in the next few days. The goal of the show is simple: make talking about sex less taboo. Colton is working with both the Daily Cardinal and Sex Out Loud to produce and advertise the show, but he says he's also making great use of social networking sites, particularly Facebook and Twitter, to get the word out.

The first episode was originally supposed to air yesterday, but due to a series of really unfortunate events, the release date has been postponed. I'm hoping it'll be up by Sunday night so I can embed a clip or two into the PowerPoint for presenting, but if not I'm sure I'll find something else.