NANCY
BAYM
Nancy
Baym, Ph.D. is an American academic, formerly a
Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas and currently a
Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. She was a member of the founding
board and former president of the Association of Internet Researchers,
and serves on the board of several academic journals covering new media and
communication. She has published research and provided media commentary on the
topics of social communication, new media,
and fandom.
Nancy
Baym is passionate when it comes to her hobbies and interests. She is an avid
photographer and posts some of her work on her flickr
account. She has great enthusiasm for unique music genres, including Scandinavian
and alternative. She shares her most memorable music moments on a comic strip.
Baym also expresses herself through her personal blog, which she has called
“Online Fandom: New Perspectives on Fan Communication and Online Social
Life." In this blog, she comments on current social issues, generally
involving the interactions between society and technology. Baym also uses other
social networking sites, including Tumblr,
Google+,
Facebook,
and Twitter.
She uses these primarily for social and personal reasons. Occasionally, she
uses Twitter to share about her research, upcoming events, and sometimes to ask
the public for suggestions on course materials.
Baym has been a contributor in
28 articles since 1993, and 3 books and has another in the works. The first of
which was published in 2000, called “Tune in, log on: Soaps, Fandom, and the
online Community.” The next book Baym released was “The interpersonal
Internet”, which was published in 2003. Her most recent book is “Personal
Connections in the Digital Age”, which was published in 2010. She has also
contributed to many articles appearing in magazines such as New York University Press, International
Journal of Cultural Studies, Electronic Journal of Communication, Internet
Research Annual, and the Journal of Computer-Mediated communication.
Her book Tune In, Log On:
Soaps, Fandom, and Online Community (2000), Baym argues that soap opera
fans form "a dynamic community of people with unique voices, distinctive
traditions, and enjoyable relationships."In addition, the book “Is an
ethnographic study of internet soap opera fan group. Bridging the fields of
computer mediated communication and audience studies, the book shows how verbal
and nonverbal communicative practices create collaborative interpretations and
criticism, group humor, interpersonal relationships, group norms, and
individual identity.”This book made her one of the first major researchers to
study and report on the characteristics of online communities.
Nancy's book, Personal
Connections in the Digital Age, published in 2010, is about thinking
critically about the roles of digital media
in personal relationships, it offers data-grounded information on how to makes
sense of these changes in relational life. The books explores how we used
mediated language and nonverbal behavior to develop and maintain communicates, social
networks, new relationships, and to maintain everyday relationships.
It provides a firmer understanding of digital media and everyday life. In her
book, she defines seven concepts "that can be used to differentiate
digital media and which influence how people use them and with what
effects." These concepts are interactivity, temporal structure, social
cues, storage, replicability, reach and mobility. Ultimately, "the author
states at the end that the book was written for those who see communication
technologies as new and different, those who take them for granted and those
who will be thinking through technologies not yet invented," claimed
Stuart James Fitz-Gerald in his review of the book.
In addition, she is in the
process of writing a second book called Beautiful and Strange: The
Relationship Between Artists and Audience that studies the communication
and relationship between the artists and their fans. There is not yet a date
set for its release.
She also maintains a weblog
dedicated to coverage of "news and perspectives on fan communication"
and often contributes to an online social media research blog.
Nancy Baym has received multiple
awards since her college days in the early 1990s. During her years at The University of Illinois, she received three prestigious
awards.
- Marie Hochmuth Nichols Award 1991
- “The Nichols Award recognizes the department’s most outstanding veteran teaching assistant. The award is given on the basis of the total record of a student’s teaching in the department.”
- Karl R. Wallace Award 1993
- “The Wallace Award recognizes distinguished scholarship by a graduate student.”
- Ruth S. and Charles H. Bowman Award 1994
- “The Bowman Award is conferred upon the department’s most outstanding graduate student, based on the student’s total record of scholarship, teaching, and service.”
In addition, Nancy has received
awards from the University of Kansas where she is a professor of communications.
- Center for Teaching Excellence Award (2004)
- $5,000 Kemper Awards for excellent teaching (2005)