So here’s the powerpoint presentation of yesterday’s LSE seminar. I want to thank the students and faculty of the Institute of Social Psychology for having me. A special thank you to Prof. Sandra Jovchelovitch and Prof. Saadi Lahlou for the flattering introduction and for the stimulating discussion about the many methodological, ethical and theoretical challenges associated to research on pro-ana websites.
Some of the questions that emerged during the discussion are addressed in the presentation itself. For those willing to develop the other points, I provide a few bibliographic references on the following topics: (1) pro-ana and pro-mia online communities; (2) online ethnographies and network analysis; (3) ethics of online research; (4) privacy in social media; (5) agent-based modelling and social simulation. These references have been collected in collaboration with Pedro Araya (EHESS, Paris) and Paola Tubaro (U. of Greenwich).
If you want to cite this presentation please use the following format:
Casilli, Antonio A. (2010). Studying Eating Disorders in the Social Web. New methods, new questions, Institute of Social Psychology SSS, London School of Economics and Political Science, May 11th <http://www.bodyspacesociety.eu/2010/05/12/studying-pro-ana-communities-in-the-social-web-lse-seminar>
ON PRO-ANA AND PRO-MIA ONLINE COMMUNITIES
Allen, J.T. (2008). The Spectacularization of the Anorexic Subject Position. Current Sociology. 56: 587. DOI: 10.1177/0011392108090943.
Bardone-Cone, A. M. & Cass, K. M. (2007). What does Viewing a Pro-anorexia website do? An Experimental Examination of Website Exposure and Moderating Effects. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 40: 537-548.
Brotsky, S.R. & Giles, D. (2007). Inside the “pro-ana” Community: A Covert Online Participant Observation. Eating Disorders. 15: 93-109.
Chesley, E.B., Alberts, J.D., Klein, J.D., Kreipe, R.E. (2003). Pro or Con? Anorexia Nervosa and the Internet. Journal of Adolescent Health. 32:2.
Csipke, E. & Horne, O. (2007). Pro-eating Disorder Websites: Users’ Opinions. European Eating Disorders Review. 15: 196-206.
Custers, K. & Van den Bulck, J. (2009). Viewership of Pro-anorexia Websites in Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Graders. European Eating Disorders Review. DOI: 10.1002/erv.910.
Dias, K. (2003). The Ana Sanctuary: Women’s Pro-Anorexia Narratives in Cyberspace. Journal of International Women’s Studies. 4(2): 31-45.
Ferreday, D. (2003). Unspeakable Bodies. Erasure, Embodiment, and the Pro-ana Community. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 6(3): 277–295.
Gavin, J., Rodham, K., & Poyer, H. (2008). The Presentation of “Pro-anorexia” in Online Group Interactions. Qualitative Health Research. 18: 325-333.
Giles, D. (2006). Constructing Identities in Cyberspace: The Case of Eating Disorders. British Journal Of Social Psychology. 45: 463-477.
Harper, K., Sperry, S. & Thompson, J.K. (2008). Viewership of Pro-Eating Disorder Websites: Association with Body Image and Eating Disturbances. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 41: 92-95.
Lee, S. (1996). Reconsidering the Status of Anorexia Nervosa as a Western Culture-Bound Syndrome. Social Science and Medicine. 42 (1): 21-34.
Lyons, E. J., Mehl, M. R., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2006). Pro-anorexics and Recovering Anorexics Differ in their Linguistic Internet Self-presentation. Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 60: 253-256.
Mulveen, R. & Hepworth, J. (2006). An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Participation in a Pro-anorexia Internet Site and Its Relationship with Disordered Eating. Journal of Health Psychology. 11: 283.
Norris, M.L., Boydell, K.M., Pinhas, L., Katzman, D.K. (2006). Ana and the Internet: A Review of Pro-anorexia Websites. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 39 (6): 443-447.
Pollack, D. (2003). Pro-eating Disorder Websites: What Should be the Feminist Response? Feminism & Psychology. 13(2): 246–251.
Rieger, E., Touyz, S. W., Swain, T. & Beumont, P. J. V. (2001). Cross-cultural Research on Anorexia Nervosa: Assumptions Regarding the Role of Body Weight. International Journal of Eating Disorders. 29: 205–215.
Soh, N.L., Touyz, S.W. & Surgenor, L.J. (2006). Eating and Body Image Disturbances Across Cultures: A Review. European Eating Disorders Review. 14: 54–65.
Stracke S., Zeeck, A., Hartmann A., et al. (2008). Pro-Ana-Lifestyle, Community, Psychic Disorder? – 2nd Differentiating the Pro-Ana-adherent Diagnostics of Person with Diagnosis Eating Disorder, which However Does not Confide to Pro-Ana? Psychotherapie Psychosomatik Medizinische Psychologie. 58 (2): 82-83.
Tierney, S. (2006). The Dangers and Draw of Online Communication: Pro-Anorexia Websites and their Implications for User, Practitioners, and Researchers. Eating Disorders. 14: 181-190.
Ward, K.J. (2007). ‘I Love You to the Bones’: Constructing the Anorexic Body in ‘Pro-ana’ Message Boards. Sociological Research Online. 12 (2).
Wilson, J.L., Peebles, R., Hardy, K.K. & Litt, E.F. (2006). Surfing for Thinness: A Pilot Study of Pro-eating Disorder Web Site Usage in Adolescents with Eating Disorders. Pediatrics. 118:1635-1643.
ON ONLINE ETHNOGRAPHIES AND NETWORK ANALYSIS
Bainbridge, William Sims (2010 The Warcraft Civilization: Social Science in a Virtual World. The MIT Press.
Beaulieu, Anne (2004) Mediating ethnography: objectivity and the makings of ethnographies on the internet, Social Epistemology 18: 139-164.
Correll, S. (1995) The Ethnography of an Electronic Bar. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 24 (3): 270-299.
Hine, C. (2000) Virtual Ethnography, London: Sage.
Hine, Christine (2005). Internet Research and the Sociology of Cyber-Social-Scientific Knowledge, The Information Society, 21 (4): 239-248.
Hogan, B., Carrasco, J.A., Wellman, B. (2007). Visualizing Personal Networks: Working with Participant-aided Sociograms. Field Methods. 19 (2): 116-144.
Jones, S. (1998) (ed.) Doing Internet Research: Critical Issues and Methods for Examining the Net, ed. S.G. Jones. London: Sage.
Koo, M. & Skinner, H. (2005). Challenges of Internet Recruitment: A Case Study with Disappointing Results. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 7(1): e6.
Le, B., Moss, W. B. & Mashek, D. (2007). Assessing Relationship Closeness On-line: Moving from an Interval-scaled to Continuous Measure of Including Others in the Self. Social Science Computer Review. 25: 405-409.
Lozar Manfreda, K., Vehovar, V. & Hlebec, V. (2004). Collecting ego-centered Support Networks by Web and Telephone. Metodološki zvezki. 3(2): 239-252.
Mackay, Hugh (2005). New connections, familiar settings: issues in the ethnographic study of new media use at home. In: Hine, Christine ed. Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet. Oxford, UK: Berg, pp. 129–140.
Mann, C. and Stewart, F. (eds.) (2000) Internet Communication and Qualitative Research: A Handbook for Researching Online. London: Sage.
Marin, A. & Hampton, K.N. (2007). Simplifying the Personal Network Name Generator: An Alternative to Traditional Multiple and Single Name Generators. Field Methods. 19: 163-193.
McCarty, C., Govindaramanujam, S. (2005). A Modified Elicitation of Personal Networks Using Dynamic Visualization. Connections. 26 (2): 61-69.
Monge, P. R. & Contractor, N. S. (2003). Theories of Communication Networks. New York: Oxford University Press.
Murthy, D. (2008). Digital Ethnography: An Examination of the Use of New Technologies for Social Research. Sociology. 42 (5): 837-855.
Petróczi A., Nepusz T. and Bazsó, F. (2007), Measuring Tie-strength in Virtual Social Networks. Connections. 27(2): 39-52.
Procopio, C. H., & Procopio, S. T. (2007). Do you Know what it Means to Miss New Orleans? Internet Communication, Geographic Community, and Social Capital in Crisis. Journal of Applied Communication Research. 35: 67-87.
Salganik, M.J. & Heckathorn, D.D. (2004). Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling. Sociological Methodology. 34: 193–239.
Schaap, F. (2002) The Words That Took Us There: Ethnography In A Virtual Reality/. Amsterdam: Askant.
Wittel, A. (2000). Ethnography on the Move: From Field to Net to Internet. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung, 1 (1).
ON ETHICS OF ONLINE RESEARCH
Buchanan, Elizabeth (2004) Readings in Virtual Research Ethics: Issues and Controversies. London: Idea Group.
Ensmenger, Nathan (2007) Computers as Ethical Objects. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 29:3, 86-88.
McKee, Heidi, and James Porter (2009( The Ethics of Internet Research. A Rhetorical, Case-based Process. New York: Peter Lang.
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Hoser, Bettina, and Tanja Nitschke (2010) Questions on ethics for research in the virtually connected world. Social Networks (In Press, Corrected Proof. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VD1-4Y6K05N-1/2/70040e93c3e01d614dcd5acd5dd47b9d).
Papademas, Diana (2009) IVSA Code of Research Ethics and Guidelines. Visual Studies, 1472-5878, Vol. 24, Iss 3, Pp, 250 – 257. The International Visual Sociology Association.
Ploug, Thomas (2009) Ethics in Cyberspace: How Cyberspace May Influence Interpersonal Interaction. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Netherlands.
Thorseth, May (2008) Reflective judgment and enlarged thinking online. Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 10, Number 4, Pp: 221-231. DOI: 10.1007/s10676-008-9166-6.
Zimmer, M. (2008) The panoptic gaze of web search engines. In A. Spink and M. Zimmer (Eds.), Web Searching: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 77-99.
ON PRIVACY IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Awad, N. F., & Krishnan, M. S. (2006). The personalization privacy paradox: An empirical evaluation of information transparency and the willingness to be profiled online for personalization. MIS Quarterly, 30, 13-28.
Bakardjieva, M. (2003). Virtual togetherness: An everyday-life perspective. Media, Culture & Society, 25, 291-313.
Barnes, Susan. (2006). A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States. First Monday 11 (9), July 2006
boyd, danah (2005) Review of Material Virtualities. New Media and Society 7 (1), pp. 139-141
boyd, danah. (2007). Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What? Knowledge Tree, 13.
boyd, danah. (2008). Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence. Convergence 14 (1), February 2008
boyd, danah (2010) Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity. Differing conceptualisations of privacy. Austin, TX: SXSW 2010
Dwyer, Catherine, Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Katia Passerini (2007). Trust and Privacy Concern Within Social Networking Sites: A Comparison ofFacebook and MySpace. Proceedings of AMCIS 2007, Keystone, CO.
Judith Donath and danah boyd (2004) Public displays of connection. BT Technology Journal Vol 22 No 4, pp 71-82.
Lange, Patricia (2007) Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube. JCMC, 13 (1).
Lee, Hangwoo (2006) Privacy, Publicity, and Accountability of Self-Presentation in an On-Line Discussion Group.” Sociological Inquiry, 76 (1 ): 1-22.
Livingstone, S. (2008). “Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression.” New media & society 10(3): 393-411.
Paine Schofield, C. B., & Joinson, A. N. (2008). Privacy, trust, and disclosure online. In A. Barak (Ed.), Psychological aspects of cyberspace: Theory, research, applications (pp. 13-31). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Paine, C., Reips, U., Stieger, S., Joinson, A., & Buchanan, T. (2007). Internet users’ perceptions of ‘privacy concerns’ and ‘privacy actions’. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65, 526-536.
Tufekci, Z. (2008). Can you see me now? Audience and disclosure regulation in online social network sites. Bulletin of Science Technology Society, 28, 20-36*.
Viseu, A., Clement, A., & Aspinall, J. (2004). Situating privacy online: Complex perceptions and everyday practices. Information, Communication & Society, 7, 92-114.
Zimmer, M. (2008) The Externalities of Search 2.0: The Emerging Privacy Threats when the Drive for the Perfect Search Engine meets Web 2.0, First Monday, 13(3).
Zimmer, M. (2008) Privacy on Planet Google: Using the Theory of “Contextual Integrity” to Expose the Privacy Threats of Google’s Quest for the Perfect Search Engine, Journal of Business & Technology Law, 3(2).
ON AGENT-BASED MODELLING AND SOCIAL SIMULATION
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