#JoyCott and the four affordances of networked publics

#JoyCott and the four affordances of networked publics

by | Sep 21, 2014 | activism, mental health, PhD, social media | 0 comments

For some of us, the Asda #MentalPatient incident is etched on our memories as a Twitterstorm which took an issue from relative obscurity, to mainstream media notoriety in the space of an evening. Today a serendipitous scroll through Twitter led me to happen upon another corporate blunder – an indication of how much further we have to go in reducing stigmatising attitudes towards mental distress. Put simply, the @joythestore responded in a misjudged manner to a legitimate question from an individual on Twitter about a card they were stocking in their store. A couple of tweets later and @joythestore had unwittingly provided perfect content for another online protest. Rather than discuss the specifics of the offensive tweets, I will consider how the technical affordances of Twitter and the social practices of individuals combine to enable a viral protest. In order to do this, I draw on four affordances of ‘networked publics’ which, according to Boyd, are notably different in character from physical public spaces in the following ways: Persistence: the durability of online expressions and content Visibility: the potential audience who can bear witness Spreadability: the ease with which content can be shared Searchability: the ability to find content (Boyd, 2014, p.11). I use these four themes as a basis to examine how a mixture of technical affordances and deliberate social practices by people on Twitter, have turned the #JoyCott episode into a viral phenomenon. Persistence – the persistence of content on social media enables asynchronous conversations to take place without temporal limitations.  Persistence also means that content can be hard to remove.  Practices on social networking sites such...
Audible Thoughts – A unique research project in mental health

Audible Thoughts – A unique research project in mental health

by | Sep 10, 2014 | PhD | 0 comments

I have found undertaking PhD research a solitary experience, so it is lovely to find other people on the same journey and researching in a similar field. Ali is doing fascinating research at the same University as me and I can’t wait to meet up with her and exchange notes. Here is a summary of her research and a request to get involved: My name is Ali Hull and I’m a PhD student at the University of .Leeds. I’m carrying out some research into the ways in which we think, talk, write about and otherwise represent mental health, with a view to understanding how those things impact on clinical practice. I am looking for people who are aged 18+ and have experience of NHS mental health care to take part in my study. Purpose of the research There are many different ways to think about mental health. Service users and mental health staff don’t always agree on what causes mental health problems, or what can be done to help those who experience them. This sometimes contributes to a mutual sense of ‘not being understood.’ Previous research tells us that staff who work with people who are mentally unwell sometimes find their work challenging. To help them cope, staff use things like humour to help them. My research attempts to bring together the ways we think about mental health and the way mental health staff deal with the difficulties of working with those who are distressed. The hope is that my research findings will be used to help improve care. The first phase of my research will help me to understand...