Creating a Catfish

To meet the Communication and Media Studies departmental learning outcome of “The ability to understand emerging communication and
media technologies, and the complex causes and opportunities of
that evolution”, I am using my final paper for the course Social Media: Technology and Culture, Creating a Catfish. This artifact meets the learning outcome through the term of “catfishing” being a relatively new idea. Since catfishing is a developing idea in the world of the internet and media, there are unknown causes that may come along with this act of pretending to be someone else online. There are also complex reasons that cause people to begin being a catfish, which is what this paper primarily explores.

Creating a Catfish represents this objective because the paper explores real cases that have happened relating to catfishing and the outcomes of the cases, such as loss of trust and skepticism when it comes to meeting new people online. As the internet and social media develop and change over time, catfishing will also evolve. This paper looks into the catfishers themselves, and the reasons that they begin to catfish. Although causes are important to think about and look into, there are many pieces that go into developing media that need to be talked about and discussed as well.

This artifact shows my success in meeting this learning objective for the Communication and Media Studies department because I was able to explain a developing media technology (the internet, specifically social media) and a complex cause of this technology (catfishing). Through this assignment, I showed that I was able to understand and explain a media technology that is always developing and changing and how it has caused a change in our culture and in every day life for many people across the world.