Parental sense-making of adolescent ‘sexting’ in online forums: Competing repertoires and gendered negotiations

Purpose: Attention resource is scarce. Organizing community activities in online forums faces the challenge of attracting users’ limited attention. Understanding how users of online forums allocate, maintain, and change their attentional focus and what features of online forms influence their attention behaviors is critical for effective information design. This paper seeks understanding of users’ attention behaviors and features when they participate in discussions in online forums. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual model was established to explore the indicator system of attention’s measurement. The related attention data were collected from Alexa Access Statistics Tool and Katie community. Then this paper computed the correlation coefficient and regression relationship between the indicators of visual attention and cognitive attention. Thereafter this paper analyzed and discussed users’ attention behaviors and features in Internet forum. Findings: Relevant bivariate correlation analysis and regression analysis discovers that Internet forum's attention is mainly as visual attention in users’ early involvement. Attention resources can be transformed. In a deep participation, users’ cognitive attention is more significant. Meanwhile cognitive attention behaviors’ further development will lead to the phenomenon that cognitive attention input is prone to increase faster in the early duration. That means in-depth discussion and interaction are more likely to appear in the early stages of participation. Research limitations/implications: There are some limitations about this study. The indicators are not comprehensive enough because factors affecting the distribution of attention resources in Internet forums are complex. We didn’t distinguish different types of Internet forums when we collected the relevant data. Future research will focus more on how to obtain comprehensive attention data. Originality/value: T his paper shows a new perspective that we can find users’ attention behaviors and features using the attention data from its mapping object, which can help operators of portals and Internet communities to attract users’ limited attention.

Purpose: Attention resource is scarce. Organizing community activities in online forums faces the challenge of attracting users’ limited attention. Understanding how users of online forums allocate, maintain, and change their attentional focus and what features of online forms influence their attention behaviors is critical for effective information design. This paper seeks understanding of users’ attention behaviors and features when they participate in discussions in online forums. Design/methodology/approach: A conceptual model was established to explore the indicator system of attention’s measurement. The related attention data were collected from Alexa Access Statistics Tool and Katie community. Then this paper computed the correlation coefficient and regression relationship between the indicators of visual attention and cognitive attention. There after this paper analyzed and discussed users’ attention behaviors and features in Internet forum. Findings: Relevant bivariate correlation analysis and regression analysis discovers that Internet forum's attention is mainly as visual attention in users’ early involvement. Attention resources can be transformed. In a deep participation, users’ cognitive attention is more significant. Meanwhile cognitive attention behaviors’ further development will lead to the phenomenon that cognitive attention input is prone to increase faster in the early duration. That means in-depth discussion and interaction are more likely to appear in the early stages of participation. Research limitations/implications: There are some limitations about this study. The indicators are not comprehensive enough because factors affecting the distribution of attention resources in Internet forums are complex. We didn’t distinguish different types of Internet forums when we collected the relevant data. Future research will focus more on how to obtain comprehensive attention data. Originality/value: This paper shows a new perspective that we can find users’ attention behaviors and features using the attention data from its mapping object, which can help operators of portals and Internet communities to attract users’ limited attention.

Eleştirel Söylemsel Analiz yönteminin kullanıldığı bu çalışma, Türkiye’de sosyal medya bağlamında annelik kimliğinin kadınlar tarafından inşasını, söylemsel kaynaklar olan açıklayıcı repertuarlar ve özne konumları ile ele almayı amaçlamıştır. Bunun için ilk olarak Facebook ve Instagram kanallarında yer alan fenomen anne profilleri ve annelik gruplarında paylaşılan gönderiler ve bu gönderilere gelen takipçi yorumları incelenmiştir. İkinci olarak birbirinden farklı özelliklere sahip 5 anne ile yarı yapılandırılmış mülakat yapılmıştır. Sosyal medya incelemesi sonucunda “bireysel annelik”, “kadın-erkek eşitsizliği üzerinden annelik”, “yeterince fedakârlık” ve “yetersizlik” olmak üzere 4 açıklayıcı repertuar elde edilmiştir. Özne konumları olarak da fenomen anneler için “duyurucu, öğretici, aydınlatıcı, yol gösterici, nasihat edici ve rol model olarak alınabilecek kişi” konumları tespit edilmiştir. Fenomen annelerin takipçileri için ise “fenomen annenin öğreticiliği, yol göstericiliği ve rol modelliğini kabul edenler ve kabul etmeyenler” şeklinde özne konumları tespit edilmiştir. Mülakat yapılan katılımcı annelerin konuşmalarında ise “öngörülemeyen annelik”, “denge kurma olarak annelik” ve “bireysel değişim olarak annelik” olmak üzere 3 açıklayıcı repertuar tespit edilmiştir. Belirlenen özne konumları ise “zahmet çeken kişi” konumu ve “olması gerekeni olan kişi” konumu şeklindedir. Görüşmelerde tespit edilen annelik kimliğinin inşasında kullanılan açıklayıcı repertuarların, sosyal medya bağlamında kullanılan açıklayıcı repertuarlarla benzeştiği ve farklılaştığı noktaların olduğu görülmüştür. Her iki bağlamda kullanılan özne konumlarının ise farklılaşmadığı belirlenmiştir. Sonuçlar, Türkiye'de feminizm, annelik üzerine yapılan önceki çalışmalar ve sosyal medyada benlik sunumu bağlamında tartışılmıştır.

The paper reports a study that investigated the construction of a common identity in an online Italian forum of psychologists based on asynchronous CMC. Discourse analysis was carried out on 20 discussions, and three Interpretative Repertoires were identified: (i) Professional Boundaries, (ii) disempowered psychology and (iii) psychology and health, which refer to three recurrent modalities of constructing the psychological profession. The study suggests that a framework drawing on social constructionism and Bourdieu's critical theory can help understand some aspects of identity in, and across, communities of practice. The main conclusion is that analysing critically how identities are constructed in learning environments, virtual or not, allows reconsidering the role of the cultural context in the production of those identities.

In this article, the entries about “being a man” on Ekşi Sözlük are analysed through the Critical Discursive Psychology approach. The extracts were analysed with the Critical Discursive Psychology approach and interpretative repertoires were revealed. As a result of the analysis, 6 different interpretative repertoires were obtained. In the first of these, “The ‘essence’ and ‘other’ inside the man” repertoire, being a man is explained based on the "natural-given" differences. In the "preoccupation with sexuality" repertoire, sexuality is positioned in the most central area of men's lives. In the "responsibilities and obligations" repertoire, being a man is defined by a number of responsibilities expected from men by society. In the "patriarchal system and the mother's son" repertoire, it is stated that men's behavioral practices are determined by the patriarchal system and this is supported and maintained by mothers. In the "car, football, repairs: masculine performance" repertoire, it is stated that certain masculine activities serve as the criteria for being a man. Finally, the meaning in the "woman versus masculinity" repertoire, being a man is defined over the oppositions established with women. Keywords Masculinity, critical discursive psychology, interpretative repertoires, new media

Purpose Informal learning is vital to microenterprises, yet the common view of it as “organic” obscures a contested terrain where women – especially in non-standard roles – must continually negotiate legitimacy, a process shaped by power. We examine how power operates to construct legitimacy in women's informal workplace learning. Design/methodology/approach We adopt a critical discursive psychology (CDP) approach, integrated with legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) – the core concept of communities of practice (CoP) theory – to advance a social constructionist account of legitimacy. Based on nine interviews with women workers in three Czech microenterprises, our framework guided inductive analysis and abductive theory-building. Findings We identify three interpretative repertoires – contextual practice, negotiated practice and personal–social construction – through which women workers negotiated legitimacy in their informal learning. The analysis introduces the discursive legitimacy model (DLM), revealing validation as the key mechanism of voice and visibility and showing that these tensions are stratified more by tenure and employment status than by gender per se. Originality/value We offer novel insights into women's informal learning – both old-timers and newcomers – across diverse employment statuses in under-researched microenterprises. Uniting CoP theory and CDP, we advance a power-sensitive account of workplace learning in resource-constrained contexts.

Learning democratic participation as future citizens is an important goal for science education for all students. To take part in debates and decision-making involving socioscientific issues, such as sustainability, students need to become aware of different positions and dilemmas regarding such issues. This study seeks to understand how democratic participation is constructed by 45 student participants aged 16 years, for whom science is not the main course of study. Students worked in small groups on tasks that involved discussion of two different socioscientific issues. The analysis of student discourse used a theoretical perspective from discursive psychology, and shows how students deal with ideological dilemmas and resolve different positions within their discussions. Five ‘interpretative repertoires’ were identified from student talk illustrating the dilemmas occurring in the specific SSIs and also the function of science within the discussion. Through identifying interpretative repertoires used by the students, the stances they take and the function of science in their discussions, the study sheds light on how democratic participation can be learnt in a science education context.

The increasing incidence of ‘trafficking’ has added an incontestably disturbing dimension to the contestable nature of a ‘non‐trafficked’ UK sex industry. Men who buy sex remain under‐researched, though some studies have indicated ambivalence within men's attitudes. This study combines a critical discursive psychology in support of dialogical self theory. Secondary data, from prominent UK media resources, were analysed using Edley's (2001) method of combining ‘interpretative repertoires’, ‘ideological dilemmas’ and ‘subject positions’. Contrasting discursive practices indicative of wider ideological conflict were found. Discursive concepts were ‘mapped’ onto Hermans and Hermans‐Konopka's (2010) ‘I‐positions’ to explore how these potentially dilemmatic positions might be understood in terms of identity production. The function of ‘uncertainty’, particularly salient with the increasing complexity of globalisation, was considered a factor in how men's identities might be limited by the current discursive space. A ‘dialogical’ model of self is introduced as a framework for understanding how men who buy sex might take up new, inclusive, positions. A corollary is reflected upon; that researchers, activists and buyers alike, who remain ideologically inflexible, may be sustaining the conditions for coercion through their contribution to the discursive conflict. The synthesis of discursive and dialogical analytical tools is recommended for investigating the production of selves in contested spaces.

ABSTRACTThe present study explores how adolescents negotiate consent and coercion in sexting through the employment of Critical Discursive Psychology (CDP), focusing on the socio‐political and ideological aspects of such constructions. Focus groups were conducted with 18 UK‐based adolescents, aged 16–18, highlighting the role of gender in shaping the discursive terrain. The first interpretative repertoire, “The negotiation of consent and construction of coercion as absence of affirmative consent” highlights that adolescents initially framed consent as clear and explicit, with the absence of these affirmative elements seen as coercion. However, after the introduction of vignettes, the discursive landscape shifted. The interpretative repertoire “The negotiation of responsibility in sexting coercion” highlights how, in coercive scenarios, adolescents often shifted the blame to the vignette victim for not clearly rejecting advances, drawing on gendered socio‐historical discursive resources. Despite this, some adolescents resisted this rhetoric and attributed responsibility to the coercive party. The findings suggest that sexting consent and coercion constitute an ideological dilemma, with adolescents both excusing coercion and challenging traditional norms. The implications of these findings highlight the persistent challenges in achieving more progressive rhetoric regarding sexual consent and carry significant relevance for both sex education and consent activism.

Whether intimate partner violence (IPV) is a gendered phenomenon or not is a question that continuously arouses debate both among scholars and the general public. This article analyses meaning-making around IPV and gender in online discussions that focus on IPV committed by women. The analysis draws upon critical discursive psychology, and identifies ideological dilemmas, interpretative repertoires and subject positions related in the discussions to the relevance of gender, on the one hand, and gender equality, on the other. The ideological dilemmas focused on the relevance of gender revolve around a gender-neutral repertoire and a gendered difference repertoire, while those focused on gender equality centre on the opposing repertoires of gender equality as a commonplace value and gender equality gone wrong. A more detailed examination of how these repertoires are constructed, negotiated, and used in the discussions reveals a pattern where discursive devices such as factualisation techniques are employed in combination with an affectively emphatic style of expression in ways that, for the most part, work to discredit the value of feminist understandings of links between IPV, gender, and power, while, instead, valorising seeming gender neutrality.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reveal how “cool” as a concept is constructed by urban tweens in the post‐socialist country Estonia.Design/methodology/approachThe data consist of 42 essays written by 12‐year‐old schoolchildren of a secondary school in Tallinn in 2007. Discourse analysis was used to discover interpretative repertoires, subject positions and ideological dilemmas in the essays.Findings“Cool” is primarily constructed within three interpretative repertoires: cool as appearance, cool as leisure and cool as sports and hobbies. The main subject positions are young expert consumer, fun‐lover/pleasure‐seeker, achiever and creator. The main ideological dilemma is between individual distinction and fitting and merging into the group.Research limitations/implicationsThe essays are rather brief and normative statements of what qualifies as “cool”. However, a certain degree of social desirability constitutes the value of these texts, revealing what Estonian tweens consider to be norms and shared beliefs.Practical implicationsThe paper addresses the prominent place consumerism occupies in tweens' everyday life. It opens up the world of meaning‐making of “cool” by tweens, offering an insight into which repertoires responsible marketers could use to empower young consumers.Originality/valueThe paper sheds light on tweens' complicated symbolic and material worlds in a post‐socialist context, providing a continuum of meanings of “cool” and its relationships with the consumer and peer culture.

Sexting is the interpersonal exchange of self-produced, sexually suggestive photographs, videos, or messages via technological means. Our study explores parental constructions of adolescent sexting and gender. Using critical discursive psychology, we analyse 15 dyadic interviews with UK-based parents/carers of adolescents ( N = 30). Two interpretative repertoires were evident across the data set. The first, “sexting consequences that demand ‘real’ awareness” functions to solidify protectionist discourses and sets abstinence as the only act of “real” agency. Participants positioned gendered adolescent agency with girls as “Insta-girls” sexting for popularity, “mean girls” who use sexting as form of power play, and boys as “the initiators and perpetrators of sexting.” The second repertoire, “sexting as a lasting and dangerous problem” constructed sexting as problematic in terms of the likelihood that images would be nonconsensually shared, and explicated how adolescents were positioned regarding gender and victimhood with “girls as victims of the patriarchal culture.” “Boys face challenges too” constructs boys as facing challenges that obscure the nature and effects of their harassment. We discuss the findings in relation to Butler's gender performativity theory and the sociopolitical discursive terrain, highlighting their ideological implications and the need for positions that prioritise youth-centric conceptualisations of sexting.

Although the benefits of contact for positive intergroup relations are widely acknowledged, less is known about how group members construct the agency and responsibility of contact participants in intergroup encounters. Using critical discursive psychology, we analysed the interpretative repertoires that Finnish majority mothers (N = 13) and mothers with an immigrant background (N = 10) used when talking about a hypothetical intergroup encounter among Finnish and immigrant mothers in a ‘family café’ (a group for mothers and children). Our analysis identified five interpretative repertoires that differed in terms of the levels of categorization used (individual, group, motherhood) and how agency and responsibility for initiating contact were discursively attributed to the parties in the intergroup encounter. Overall, constructing someone as agentic did not automatically result in their being portrayed as more responsible for making contact. Respondents described contact to occur with only two repertoires, in which both agency and responsibility for initiating contact were discursively attributed to the same party. This highlights the need to consider both agency and sense of responsibility as possible factors preceding intergroup contact.

Background: Sex workers, particularly those involved in prostitution, face elevated risks of violence and psychological distress. While existing research has focused on harm reduction strategies, limited attention has been given to the psychological protection of sex workers. Aim: This study explores the concept of a "manufactured identity," a persona constructed exclusively for the workplace, which serves as a defence mechanism for sex workers. The manufactured identity enables them to distance themselves from the intimate nature of their work and shield their true selves from work-related distress. Additionally, it may facilitate better emotional management, a sense of control, and empowerment. Employing an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis approach, this research aims to gain insights into the objectives and effects of maintaining a manufactured identity among female Greek sex workers and to explore the perspectives of those who reject its presence in their work. Materila and Methods: Five women who work as sex workers voluntarily participated in the study excluding women who were victims of trafficking. Participants were recruited through professional networks, online forums and advertisements. Three subthemes emerged from the analysis: "Better Control of the Inner World," "The Negative Aspects of a Manufactured Identity," and "The Rewards of a Manufactured Identity." Results: The findings suggest that a manufactured identity may serve many purposes such as an opportunity for self-expression and not just as a protection strategy. The participants’ narratives also revealed that their work identity, which is empowered and autonomous, enhances their true selves outside of their workplace. Conclusions: The above findings could challenge common societal interpretations of sex workers as victims. Further research is suggested focusing on the self-expression aspect of sex work, which appears to be a growing phenomenon.

Advice-giving and requesting is a complex interactional task that has been well-explored by the theoretical and analytical approaches of Discursive Psychology (DP) and Conversation Analysis (CA). However, these approaches have not previously been employed to analyse advice in the context of an online forum for carers of people living with dementia (PLWD). In this article I present how DP, with insights from both DP and CA research, can be employed to explore advice in the specific context of peer interaction on the Carers UK online forum. A single extract is presented as evidence for how a troubles-telling format can be employed to request advice in a way which places little obligation upon a potential commenter – a low-contingency request. As found in other research, this format resulted in advice being provided by commenters. The deontic and epistemic authority of the advice given by commenters will be used to display the sophistication with which commenters frame their advice to align to the indirect nature in which the advice was requested.