Wielk, Emily, Alecea Standlee. 2021. “Fighting for Their Future: An Exploratory Study of Online Community Building in the Youth Climate Change Movement.” Qualitative Sociology Review. 17:2 pp 22-37. Retrieved https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.17.2.02. 

Abstract
While offline iterations of the climate activism movement have spanned decades, today online involvement of youth through social media platforms has transformed the landscape of this social movement. Our research considers how youth climate activists utilize social media platforms to create and direct social movement communities towards greater collective action. Our project analyzes narrative framing and linguistic conventions to better understand how youth climate activists utilized Twitter to build community and mobilize followers around their movement. Our project identifies three emergent strategies, used by youth climate activists, that appear effective in engaging activist communities on Twitter. These strategies demonstrate the power of digital culture, and youth culture, in creating a collective identity within a diverse generation. This fusion of digital and physical resistance is an essential component of the youth climate activist strategy and may play a role in the future of emerging social movements.

Standlee, Alecea. 2019. “Friendship and Online Filtering: The Use of Social Media to Construct Offline Social Networks.” New Media & Society. 21:3 pp 770–85.

Abstract
This article explores technologically integrated relationship practices among college students. Analyzing interviews of 52 participants at two very different US colleges, I explore how they construct, establish, and maintain technologically mediated social networks. This research focuses specifically on the practice of “doing homework,” in which participants conduct social media investigations of potential friends and use that data to determine if a relationship continues. Findings suggest the establishment of offline relationships includes the use of social media profiles to collect social and political attitude data on potential friends. Participants report the use of such data as essential to their decision-making processes about friendship, resulting in a potential increase in social and political homogeneity within offline social networks. These findings contribute to our ongoing understanding of the role of informational echo chambers within a technologically integrated social environment.

Saladyga, Thomas, and Alecea Standlee. 2018. “Historical Drivers and Contemporary Perceptions of Wildfire in a Post-Industrial Rural Landscape.” Fire 1(3):33. Retrieved http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/fire1020033.

Abstract
Placed-based fire management planning that considers historical patterns and processes as well as contemporary local knowledge is recognized as an alternative to broad-scale, regional approaches. In this paper, we used dendrochronology and an online survey to assess historical trends and contemporary perceptions of wildfire, respectively, in the fire-prone anthracite coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania. We developed an annual index of fire occurrence and extent from 216 fire-scarred pitch pine (Pinus rigida) distributed across 9 ridge top study sites for the period 1900–2016. In addition, we collected survey responses from area residents regarding contemporary perceptions of wildfire hazards and management. Our results show that 20th century wildfire activity was not associated with drought, but closely followed fluctuations in the anthracite coal industry, with increased fire occurrence and extent associated with times of severe job losses. Less extensive wildfire continues to occur frequently, with area residents recognizing the need for fuel management (i.e., prescribed fire) and an increase in resources allocated to wildfire prevention and management as well as trash disposal and recycling programs. Our research represents one example of an integrated approach to informing sustainable fire management that considers the link between historical patterns and contemporary perceptions.

Standlee, Alecea. 2017. “Digital Ethnography and Youth Culture: Methodological Techniques and Ethical Dilemmas.” Researching Kids and Teens: Methodological Issues, Strategies, and Innovations. Vol. 22, Sociological Studies of Children and Youth. Edited by Ingrid Castro, Melissa Swauger and Brent Harger. Boston, MA. Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.

Abstract
Conducting research with children and youth has become increasingly challenging in recent years. At times these difficulties come in the form of restrictions by Institutional Review Boards, funding agencies and parents. Additionally, changes in youth culture and behavior, specifically regarding online activities and digitally mediated communications, impact the access that researchers have to children and youth communities in significant ways. In this chapter, I propose that the use of an emerging methodological technique, digital ethnography, may provide researchers with new data sources on children and youth culture. Digital ethnography combines ethnographic techniques of observation, participation and interview with content analysis to collect rich data about online behavior, norms, expectations and interactions. This technique not only provides researchers with sources of data that allow insight into youth culture by acknowledging the increasing importance of online and digital interactions in youth culture, but may also address some of the concerns raised by IRBs and other interested parties about conducting research with children and teens. This chapter provides practical and ethical considerations of this method, as well as a discussion of limitations of data collection and access as it highlights new ways of studying youth culture, using emerging data collection techniques in innovative research projects.

Standlee, Alecea. 2016. “Technology and Making Meaning in College Relationships: Understanding Hyper-Connectivity.” Qualitative Sociology Review. 12:2 pp. 6-21.

Abstract
This article explores how the use of communication technology has transformed social interactions and the sense of self that is derived from such interactions by considering the role of presence and absence in relationships among college students. Analyzing interviews with 38 participants, the article explores how they construct understandings of presence, absence, connection and disconnection within peer social groups and intimate relationships, indicating the emergence of a culture of hyper-connection. The article suggests that technological developments have enabled forms of interaction that encourage frequent connection and the idealization of constant communication among participants. These findings further indicate that the normalization of hyper-connection may have impacts on relationship practices and constructions of identity among participants.

Standlee, Alecea. 2010. “Shifting Spheres: Gender, Labor and the Construction of National Identity.” Minerva Journal of Women and War. 4:1 pp. 43-62.

Abstract
U.S. Government propaganda during the Second World War promoted an opportunistic shift in gender and labor ideology. This article examines wartime posters to argue that a new definition of "home" was created during this era by media-based labor recruitment campaigns which redefined the private sphere to include the national "home front," maintaining an ideological separation from the public sphere of international and military action. This conceptual transformation allowed the participation of women in the labor market while supporting the ideological location of women within the homesphere, thus maintaining (and reinforcing) the hierarchical gendered separation of public and private domains.

Garcia, Angela, Alecea Standlee, Jennifer Bechkoff, Yan Cui. 2009. “Ethnographic Approaches to the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 8:1 pp. 52-84.

• Reprint: Sage Internet Research Methods, Vol. 3, Taking Research Online - Qualitative Approaches. 2012. Edited by Jason Huges. London. Sage Publications.
• Reprint: Sage Benchmarks in Social Research Methods Series. Vol. 3, Data Collection. 2011. Edited by W. Paul Vogt. Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage Publications.

Abstract
This article reviews ethnographic research on the Internet and computer-mediated communication. The technologically mediated environment prevents researchers from directly observing research participants and often makes the interaction anonymous. In addition, in the online environment direct interaction with participants is replaced by computer-screen data that are largely textual, but may include combinations of textual, visual, aural, and kinetic components. This article shows how the online environment requires adjustments in how ethnographers define the setting of their research, conduct participant observation and interviews, obtain access to settings and research subjects, and deal with the ethical dilemmas posed by the medium.

Standlee, Alecea. Ed. 2018. On the Borders of the Academy: Challenges and Strategies for First-Generation Graduate Students and Faculty. Syracuse University Graduate Press.

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Abstract
One of the most significant achievements in U.S. higher education during the latter half of the 20th century was the increasing access enjoyed by historically marginalized populations, especially women, people of color, and the poor and working class. With this achievement has come a growing population of first-generation graduate students and faculty members, who struggle at times to navigate unfamiliar territory. Today, these individuals and institutions are faced with profound challenges in adapting to shifts within a social environment increasingly hostile to education. The growing diversity in higher education has left it open to attacks by those who wish to maintain systems of privilege and inequality. This book offers insight on the challenges of first-generation academics, as well as practical tools for navigating the halls of the academy for individuals and institutional allies alike.

Topics include:
• Class transgression
• Navigating outsider status
• Gaining social capital
• Experiencing tokenism and marginality
• Academic work environment
• Neolibralization of academic labor

Standlee, Alecea. 2020. “Under the Watchful Eye: Users’ Perceptions of Online Privacy and Surveillance.” AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. Retrieved https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2020i0.11335.

Abstract
This project seeks to contribute to the question, “How do internet users navigate data privacy in a digitally surveilled online world?” I augment this ongoing discussion by examining the perceptions and practices concerning privacy and self-representation in digital spaces among young adults, 18-22. This qualitative work utilizes in-depth interviews of college students in the United States to collect both behavioral and attitudinal patterns. Specifically, I consider the impact of the strategic interventions of corporate and governmental platforms to collect, distribute, and utilize individual level data on research participants’ information consumption, individual identity representation, and group affiliation. An analysis of the data finds participants engage in narrative rationalizations to help them navigate the cultural expectations of online engagement within a surveilled environment. Patterns of strategic self-representation are shaped by such rationalizations and justifications, including a fundamental shift in what the concept “privacy” means in an online world.

Standlee, Alecea. 2018. “Doing Your Homework: The Use of Social Media as a Friendship Filter.” AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. Retrieved https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2018i0.10507.

Abstract
Today, a proliferation of new communication technologies has reshaped the foundations of social interaction. For young adults who were born in the midst of the current technological age, social media and information distribution technologies and practices are part of normal everyday social interaction, even within their intimate lives. Recent scholarship on the impact of such shifting social practices has identified important patterns in how technologies are utilized as part of social life, and increasingly such scholarship has also identified some of the profound implications of such transformations. As I discuss, among the most visible and important of these implications is the evidence of the increasing partisan nature of information consumption, sometimes referred to as "echo chambers" or "filter bubbles." This paper expands this work to consider how the use of social media as a filter in the establishment of friendship networks among college students in offline spaces, shapes the composition of such social networks.

Standlee, Alecea. 2021. “Free Software, the Internet, and Global Communities of Resistance: Hacking the Global.” Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews. 50:5 pp 438-440. Retrieved https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00943061211036051y.

Standlee, Alecea. “Efficient love reigns supreme on American college campuses. Here's why.” USA TODAY Network. September 2, 2021. Retrieved https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/2021/09/02/dating-apps-and-u-s-college-campuses-efficient-love/5679914001/.

Standlee, Alecea. “Policies and Practices to Help First-Generation College Students Succeed.” Inside Higher Ed. April 11, 2019. Retrieved https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/04/11/policies-and-practices-help-first-generation-college-students-succeed-opinion.

Standlee, Alecea. “The Pros/Cons of Social Media Use by Students.” The Social Media Monthly, May 1, 2018. Retrieved https://thesocialmediamonthly.com/pros-cons-social-media-use-students.