Section 1 3 4 Platform Studies Evidence

Generated: October 23, 2025 at 04:55 AM

Chapter 1 Computational Analysis

Evidence for Section 1.3.4: Platform Studies and Reddit Research

Generated: 2025-01-09

1. Governance Innovation (Fiesler) - Community Self-Regulation

1.1 Medical Privacy Protection Through Community Norms

Evidence ID: comment_ljsi5h9
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 153
Character Count: 252
Excerpt: “I understand no bathroom breaks during exams but during regular lectures/lab is insane. Please report this, rules like this can cause a problem for people with urinary problems and they should not have to disclose their medical conditions to be exempt.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Shows community enforcing dignity norms - protecting students from having to disclose medical conditions, establishing collective standards beyond official policy.

1.2 Collaborative Threat Assessment

Evidence ID: comment_l2wt74u
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 4
Character Count: 422
Excerpt: “You can tell it’s a scam by grammar mistakes, different usage of font, and the overall formatting. The scammers will usually make these mistakes in phishing emails. This exact email was previously sent to another person in the forum as well. It’s just to bait you to click the link to send malware to”
Theoretical Demonstration: Community developing shared security literacy and collective defense mechanisms against institutional phishing attempts.

1.3 Professorial Misconduct Response

Evidence ID: comment_esv2tm1
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 6
Character Count: 266
Excerpt: “His response is absolutely atrocious and can be taken as a threat. No student should have to deal with a professor who will act like this towards a student. Report this behavior to the department of student affairs at your school and have them look into this matter.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Community establishing norms for appropriate faculty behavior and empowering students with specific reporting pathways.

1.4 Security Incident Reporting Protocol

Evidence ID: comment_lrbs6pj
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 20
Character Count: 208
Excerpt: “Did you report this to security inside? All my classes are in Fiterman and I never seen this happen. I doubt they’re students but for real if this happened on actual campus ground you need to let security know”
Theoretical Demonstration: Students creating informal security networks and establishing responsibility norms for campus safety.

1.5 Cross-Platform Governance

Evidence ID: comment_hv975p9
Subreddit: Baruch
Score: 8
Character Count: 171
Excerpt: “I was wondering how the person managed to post through Baruch announcements, like literally I replied and then I got automated emails requesting permission from moderators”
Theoretical Demonstration: Students navigating multiple governance layers (Reddit moderators, official announcement systems) and understanding different authority structures.

2. Proferes’ Platform Characteristics

2a. Pseudonymity Enabling Vulnerable Disclosures

2a.1 Professor Using Throwaway for Pedagogical Insight

Evidence ID: submission_j1ybnj
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 54
Character Count: 888
Excerpt: “Professor here: What are the biggest challenges of remote learning for you? Throwaway account, for obvious reason. I am a full-time professor at one of the four year campuses. At this point in my life, I am so far removed from the college experience that it’s hard for me to understand or even imagine what students are going through right now.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Pseudonymity enabling power-inverted dialogue - professor seeking vulnerable student feedback without institutional hierarchy.

2a.2 False Accusation Defense Through Anonymity

Evidence ID: submission_k0fj3e
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 20
Character Count: 788
Excerpt: “Falsely accused of cheating Throwaway for personal reasons. I have been falsely accused for cheating during an exam. The professor now has used homework examples and a question on the test itself to accuse me and one of my friends for cheating during the exam. He is filing a Faculty Action Report and I was just wondering how I will go about appealing it.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Anonymity protecting student from reputational damage while seeking community legal/procedural advice.

2a.3 Admission Rejection Vulnerability

Evidence ID: submission_1e410p8
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 18
Character Count: 686
Excerpt: “Rejected from queens college, please help. Hi. So I’m embarrassed to say I got rejected from QC? I’m so confused. I provided 3 recommendation letters, I had a 96 average in my esthetics program and I was even in a writing program in high school.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Platform enabling admission of academic “failure” without social stigma attachment to real identity.

2a.4 Privacy Concerns for Research

Evidence ID: submission_abnmyj
Subreddit: HunterCollege
Score: 13
Character Count: 822
Excerpt: “Would any of you be interested in any subreddit specific to Hunter College Comp Sci majors? There’s already a FB group but I don’t use it for multiple reasons (privacy concerns, mostly useless, hardly ethical business model, etc). There has been occasions in which (unfortunately) I’ve had to create a FB throwaway account to ask a quick question”
Theoretical Demonstration: Meta-commentary on platform privacy - choosing Reddit over Facebook specifically for anonymity affordances.

2a.5 Anonymous Research Participation

Evidence ID: submission_mqcp7h
Subreddit: Baruch
Score: 13
Character Count: 687
Excerpt: “To Vaccine or Not to Vaccine? Hi, fellow Bearcats! I am an MPA graduate student… For my capstone project, I am looking to gather information on personal opinions regarding the COVID-19 vaccination… Your responses will remain completely anonymous”
Theoretical Demonstration: Academic research leveraging platform anonymity for sensitive health data collection.

2b. Karma Validating Expertise

2b.1 Academic Recovery Narrative Authority

Evidence ID: submission_1akbu5y
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 631
Character Count: 2812
Excerpt: “My Academic Advisor just F***** me… I went to Lehman for a semester before I had a really bad work accident that messed up my back. I was out for months, left lehman wit[h]”
Author: azulmilkshake
Theoretical Demonstration: High karma (631) validating personal crisis navigation expertise, establishing author as credible source for academic recovery strategies.

2b.2 Financial Aid Expertise Recognition

Evidence ID: submission_x94w0o
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 127
Character Count: 5119
Thread Comments: 52
Excerpt: “A guide to Financial Aid Refunds: Pell, TAP, and Federal Loans”
Theoretical Demonstration: Community validating comprehensive financial aid guide through high engagement (127 score, 52 comments), establishing author as trusted knowledge broker.

2b.3 TAP Disbursement Knowledge

Evidence ID: comment_m92tnli
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 29
Character Count: 236
Excerpt: “It’s because tap doesn’t disburse until after you’ve attended the classes for a month! You need to prove you’re actually attending then it disburses. I got scared last semester and that’s what my advisor said! You’re good don’t worry :)”
Theoretical Demonstration: Moderate karma validating procedural knowledge about financial aid timing, peer expertise supplementing institutional information.

2b.4 Work-Study Balance Wisdom

Evidence ID: comment_mypck5x
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 49
Character Count: 570
Excerpt: “You’re working 44 hours to support your family… If you’re really willing and want to invest in yourself (I was in a similar position as you) I took out student loans and reduced my hours, the student loans paid for what I was responsible for and I had time to”
Theoretical Demonstration: Personal experience narrative receiving high validation (49 karma) for work-study balance strategies.

2b.5 Grade Calculation Advocacy

Evidence ID: comment_myqdi28
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 47
Character Count: 246
Excerpt: “Tally all your assignments, look at the syllabus and calculate it based on the syllabus. If the grade is an inaccurate reflection of your actual grades you need to speak to the professor. Preferably in person. Be professional not confrontational.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Tactical knowledge about grade disputes validated through community scoring, establishing procedural expertise.

2c. Threaded Discussions Preserving Institutional Memory

2c.1 Financial Aid Comprehensive Guide

Evidence ID: submission_x94w0o
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 127
Comments: 52
Character Count: 5119
Excerpt: “A guide to Financial Aid Refunds: Pell, TAP, and Federal Loans”
Theoretical Demonstration: 52-comment thread creating persistent knowledge repository about financial aid processes, searchable resource for future students.

2c.2 Multi-Campus Decision Thread

Evidence ID: submission_1ilftn3
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 22
Comments: 33
Character Count: 1547
Excerpt: “Got Accepted to Multiple CUNY’s”
Theoretical Demonstration: 33-comment discussion preserving comparative campus insights, creating decision-making archive.

Evidence ID: submission_1f4hykx
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 8
Comments: 32
Character Count: 730
Excerpt: “Tips on getting into CSI Nursing Program AAS”
Theoretical Demonstration: Specialized program admission knowledge preserved through threaded discussion, program-specific institutional memory.

2c.4 Financial Aid Megathread

Evidence ID: submission_19aovet
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 6
Comments: 27
Character Count: 98
Excerpt: “Financial Aid/Book Advance/Grants Megathread Spring 2024”
Theoretical Demonstration: Seasonal megathread structure creating temporal knowledge repository, administrative cycle documentation.

2c.5 Textbook Access Knowledge

Evidence ID: submission_1i17ds5
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 30
Comments: 26
Character Count: 280
Excerpt: “How to get textbooks for free?”
Theoretical Demonstration: Resource-sharing thread preserving alternative textbook acquisition methods, economic survival knowledge.

3. Ethical Tensions (Reagle/Bruckman/Rocha-Silva)

3.1 Grief and Memorial in Public Space

Evidence ID: submission_1j6xle9
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 512
Character Count: 1248
Excerpt: “Did anyone at CSI know my sister, Khaeli Reynolds? …She was 19 years old and a freshman at CSI, majoring in Pre-Med. I believe she lived in the Dolphin dorms. She tragically took her own life”
Theoretical Demonstration: Deeply personal grief shared publicly, raising questions about researching traumatic disclosures. Context collapse between memorial space and research data.

3.2 Schedule Posting as Self-Doxxing

Evidence ID: submission_1m5gr7z
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 339
Character Count: 507
Excerpt: “For the people that post ‘rate my schedule’ you’re basically doxxing yourself. This seems to be the only college subreddit where students do this… Just a quick PSA that when you post your classes including times, it’s fairly easy to doxx yourself.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Community self-awareness about privacy risks, tension between seeking help and maintaining anonymity.

3.3 Institutional vs Personal Email Boundaries

Evidence ID: submission_1i5ggtn
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 199
Character Count: 702
Excerpt: “School Email I cannot stress enough to USE YOUR SCHOOL EMAIL. Please stop using your personal gmail account. Stop typing papers in your web browsers in googledocs.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Data sovereignty concerns - tension between convenience and institutional surveillance, privacy trade-offs.

3.4 Professor Identity Concealment

Evidence ID: submission_1hevgne
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 197
Character Count: 1360
Excerpt: “CUNY Professor here… question for you all I love my job, and I love the students. I’ve worked for CUNY (one of the community colleges) and some private universities throughout my career”
Theoretical Demonstration: Power dynamics requiring anonymity - professor hiding institutional identity to gather honest feedback, ethical complexity of researching power-inverted dialogues.

3.5 Loneliness and Vulnerability

Evidence ID: submission_1iwsc4d
Subreddit: CUNY
Score: 190
Character Count: 3415
Excerpt: “Anyone else super lonely? 21 F native New Yorker. I’m going to graduate this May, and I genuinely have made 0 friends since I started college.”
Theoretical Demonstration: Intimate emotional disclosure in public forum, raising questions about appropriate research use of vulnerable self-revelations.

Summary of Theoretical Alignments

Fiesler’s Governance Innovation

The evidence shows sophisticated community self-regulation through:

Medical privacy protection norms
Collective security literacy development
Misconduct reporting protocols
Cross-platform governance navigation

Proferes’ Platform Characteristics

The evidence demonstrates:

Pseudonymity: Enabling professor feedback, academic failure discussions, sensitive research
Karma: Validating crisis navigation (631), financial expertise (127), procedural knowledge (47-49)
Threading: Creating persistent knowledge repositories (52+ comments), seasonal megathreads

Ethical Tensions (Reagle/Bruckman/Rocha-Silva)

The evidence reveals:

Grief and memorial in research contexts
Self-doxxing awareness and prevention
Data sovereignty concerns
Power-inverted dialogues
Vulnerable emotional disclosures

These examples provide robust empirical grounding for Section 1.3.4’s theoretical frameworks, demonstrating how Reddit’s technical affordances enable unique forms of community governance, expertise validation, and knowledge preservation while raising significant ethical questions about researching public yet intimate disclosures.

Evidence References (24 items) ▶