OVERVIEW
I have identified three major themes that run through my research topic: lesbian identity politics, public health, and new media technologies. I am interested in exploring the intersections of these themes in hopes to find new possibilities for lesbian identity expression and emergent healthcare communication and information avenues for this community. I intend to approach my research from a cyberfeminist theoretical lens, addressing specific topics such as (dis)embodiment, cyborg identity, and the practical/creative application of theory. While my main objective will be to investigate current applications and critique their viability in terms of aesthetics and functionality, I also intend to propose new ones and launch my own.
READINGS AT THEMATIC INTERSECTIONS
The exercise we did in thematic visualization was really helpful for me. This is how I came up with my beautiful Venn diagram. =) It helps me understand my research in terms of thematic integration, rather than chronology or some other organizational method. Below, I've chosen a few of the readings I've found so far to inform my research. I locate each of them at the intersections of my primary themes. The body of work I intend to produce will be situated at the interstices of all three themes, thus "filling the gap" and fulfilling an unmet need in terms of research and practice.
NEW MEDIA AND IDENTITY POLITICS
"Of Shit and the Soul: Tropes of Cybernetic Disembodiment in Contemporary Culture" by Allison Muri
Synopsis: Muri examines the ways in which scholars have analyzed the influence of new technology on the body and identity, and their tendency to envision a disembodied, posthuman state. She addresses cyberpunk literature and film, as well as influential cyber-theory and suggests that they reinscribe Western Christian narratives about human identity, consciousness, spirit and the body. Unlike theorists such as Donna Haraway or artists such as Stelarc (S T E L A R C ' S Site), Muri believes that these cyber cultural texts and theories do a disservice to the embodied subject. Her critique is useful when considering the physical, lived realities of lesbians, particularly in terms of tying theory into the practice of health communication.
IDENTITY POLITICS AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Excerpt: "Despite growing attention to research on women’s health over the past decade, the health problems of some subgroups of women have continued to receive relatively little attention. Lesbians are one such subgroup. Although the body of research on lesbian health is growing, much of the research to date has methodological limitations, such as the lack of appropriate comparison groups, that make it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the health status and health risks of this group of women."
PUBLIC HEALTH AND NEW MEDIA
Synopsis: This study demonstrates the efficacy of a digital media smoking cessation intervention, Happy Ending (HE), over a 44-page self-help booklet. It exemplifies the ways in which new media technologies can be leveraged to communicate and intervene with specific populations in order to improve their health. It demonstrates the strengths of digital media in comparison to print media and face to face intervention, which are both more resource intensive and sometimes less effective.
"The Search for Peer Advice in Cyberspace: An examination of online teen bulletin boards about health and sexuality"
Synopsis: This study examines the Web behavior of adolescents seeking advice related to health and interpersonal relationships on electronic bulletin boards. Overall, adolescents tended to use the health bulletin boards most frequently to ask questions related to romantic relationships and sexual health. One of the weaknesses of the study is that there were a limited number of questions referring to sexual identity and therefore, gay and lesbian youth may have been underrepresented. Nevertheless, the methods used in this study could be applied to the lesbian community, as they may exhibit similar behaviors, such as anonymous advice seeking, especially in terms of sexuality.
The fields of public health/health communication and new media have been converging in ways that seek to meet the needs of diverse populations. Examples of this new phenomenon are evident in blogs, mashups, photo sharing, podcasts, social network sites, RSS feeds, video games, virtual worlds, and wikis. Some of these are exemplified by the following online resources:
Blogs, podcasts, virtual buttons, posters, videos, etc.:
AIDS.gov and HIVTEST.org
Widgets:
Video/Texting:
Virtual World/Video Games: Second Life and Public Health
Webcast: This is Public Health
Documentary: Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria
Cyberfeminist Art/Theory:
Digital Health and Feminist (Re)visionings of Healing
Online Resource Center:
The Lesbian Health Research Center
This is one of the only online resources that specifically addresses the health concerns of lesbians. Its objectives are to generate research and to provide easily accessible health information to the lesbian community and its allies. While the website references a body of research and houses the center's document, The Importance of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Health Research, a powerful call to action, it is not very user-friendly.
Discussion Questions:
Synopsis: This study demonstrates the efficacy of a digital media smoking cessation intervention, Happy Ending (HE), over a 44-page self-help booklet. It exemplifies the ways in which new media technologies can be leveraged to communicate and intervene with specific populations in order to improve their health. It demonstrates the strengths of digital media in comparison to print media and face to face intervention, which are both more resource intensive and sometimes less effective.
"The Search for Peer Advice in Cyberspace: An examination of online teen bulletin boards about health and sexuality"
Synopsis: This study examines the Web behavior of adolescents seeking advice related to health and interpersonal relationships on electronic bulletin boards. Overall, adolescents tended to use the health bulletin boards most frequently to ask questions related to romantic relationships and sexual health. One of the weaknesses of the study is that there were a limited number of questions referring to sexual identity and therefore, gay and lesbian youth may have been underrepresented. Nevertheless, the methods used in this study could be applied to the lesbian community, as they may exhibit similar behaviors, such as anonymous advice seeking, especially in terms of sexuality.
MEDIA RESOURCES
The fields of public health/health communication and new media have been converging in ways that seek to meet the needs of diverse populations. Examples of this new phenomenon are evident in blogs, mashups, photo sharing, podcasts, social network sites, RSS feeds, video games, virtual worlds, and wikis. Some of these are exemplified by the following online resources:
Blogs, podcasts, virtual buttons, posters, videos, etc.:
AIDS.gov and HIVTEST.org
Widgets:
Video/Texting:
Virtual World/Video Games: Second Life and Public Health
Webcast: This is Public Health
Documentary: Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria
Cyberfeminist Art/Theory:
Digital Health and Feminist (Re)visionings of Healing
Online Resource Center:
The Lesbian Health Research Center
This is one of the only online resources that specifically addresses the health concerns of lesbians. Its objectives are to generate research and to provide easily accessible health information to the lesbian community and its allies. While the website references a body of research and houses the center's document, The Importance of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Health Research, a powerful call to action, it is not very user-friendly.
Discussion Questions:
- Does digital culture liberate users from gender, race, age, or sexuality by detaching identity from the body? Or, as Muri suggests, does it merely replicate the existing social order of material culture?
- Muri refutes the proclamation by artist Stelarc that bodies are obsolete, or merely part of a larger machine, but how might these cybernetic imaginings, such as the transcendence of sexual organs, non-reproductive sexual pleasure, and mechanical prostheses (particularly in terms of transgender identity, drag, etc.) -- be helpful in liberating lesbian/queer identity from mundane, physical reality?
- How does the "anxiety of disembodiment," evident in the work of Kroker and Baudrillard, relate to homophobia, particularly in terms of Muri's description of the cyborg as having "divorced reproduction from human emotion" and the technological matrix as threatening "an ancient tradition of love and romance culminating in marriage?"
- How can the paradox in cyborg theory of the simultaneous anxiety over the loss of the body and distaste for the physical functions of the body, inform the use of new media for understanding the queer, embodied subject?
