Making ethnography count – my grandpa, social justice, and me
My grandpa – my grandpa once told me that it’s okay not to be religious as long as you are a good person. This statement may not seem that remarkable but for the fact my grandpa was Dean of Liverpool Anglican cathedral when he said it. He was busy supporting gay rights, race relations and women’s role in the church before I was even born. As a child I remember fantastic conversations about equality and social justice and the ‘religious sausage machine’ (his words not mine) that he was absolutely fine with me not being a part of. I learnt from my grandpa that you can be part of an established institution and at the same time a force for positive change within in it. I’m not a touch on my grandpa in terms of grandness but we share a pragmatism towards social change – a desire to influence from within as well as ally ourselves those outside – to be both insider and outsider. Inside or outside – the starting point for my PhD research is heavily influenced by all those childhood conversations with my grandpa. I am interested in insiders and outsiders; power and identity; stigma and discrimination; and specifically how social media may be complicating and disrupting them in the context of people providing and using mental health services. My grandpa was long gone before the birth of Facebook, but I’m sure the shifting nature of how we communicate would have fascinated him also. Ethnography – I’ve chosen to do an online ethnography – immersing myself in a social media site participating, observing and interviewing –...
Mental health stigma – thinking it through in the classroom
As a PhD student I get to do some teaching within the Institute of Communications. I recently did my first ever session with Masters Degree students undertaking a module on The Politics of Personal Performance with Professor Stephen Coleman, who is also my supervisor. The module explores ‘the ways in which interpersonal communication is based upon a series of performances in which we play ourselves and come to recognise others through their performances’. It is based upon the theories of Goffman and Garfinkel. My session was on the topic of ‘stigma’ and drew on Stigma: Notes of the Management of a Spoiled Identity by Erving Goffman (1963). In my literature review I’ve found that most subsequent academic work on the topic refers back to this seminal work. You can find the slides I used for the session here. I used the official trailer for the film Asylum (2005) as a prompt for discussion about how mental health stigma is often perpetuated in popular culture. You can find a useful critique of the role movies play in reinforcing mental health stigma by Dr Peter Byrne in Screening Madness. By way of contrast I showed the fantastic film made by johnjusthuman which has been shortlisted for a 2012 Mind Media award. The film employs all the characteristics of what empirical research has shown to be most effective in challenging mental health stigma – a personal story which shows a recovery journey in the context of a diagnosis (schizophrenia) which is commonly associated with being a life-long condition in the popular imagination. It is told from a first person perspective, with emotion and...Relating 4 new media concepts to mental health
Blimey… my head is simultaneously bursting with my attempts to retain a whole load of new media literature and crushed by the realisation that my brain is way out of practice and needs significant re-tuning. My discovery of the pomodoro technique and app (free) has definitely helped me focus though and I’d recommend it to any other PhD procrastinators… I’m beginning to think about how new media literature relates to issues that arise for me in a work context when thinking about social networking by people with lived experience and/or working in mental health services. Here are a few initial thoughts, questions and ponderings arising from a number of new media concepts outlined by Terry Flew in New Media: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011). Digital divide – there’s lots of data out there about who isn’t and isn’t using social media. Who’s in and who’s out. I am curious about how people who are using our services are using social media? And what proportion of them are using social media to consume and produce information about mental health and wellbeing, for peer support, or to campaign? What’s the role of services in supporting digital inclusion and can we build this in to our care pathways? How are staff within our NHS Trust using social media both personally and professionally? Are they making the connections and, if so, how? I plan to develop this thinking during the course of my research. Collective intelligence – I’m interested in the capacity of social media to expand collective knowledge and how, in particular, stories shared by people with lived experience of...about.me
Victoria Betton
victoria betton
director mHabitat | NHS | social media & mental health doctorate | interested in digital inclusion | parma violets fiend | http://codesigndigitalhealth.co.uk
