Part of my work on the PVN project has focused on online self-disclosure. This particular paper describes a case study of disclosure among weight loss bloggers. Research shows that obesity has a social stigma in western society which leads to discriminatory attitudes towards overweight and obese people. In real life overweight people are in Goffmans’ terms (1968) discredited individuals (e.g. their differentness is evident on the spot). On the Internet however, their weight problems are not immediately perceivable by those they communicate with: in this context they have become discreditable individuals who can actively manage information about their overweight by either telling or not telling.

Despite the offline reluctance of individuals to talk openly about weight issues, there is an abundance of personal weblogs about weight loss with remarkably open accounts of everything to do with overweight. While the widespread use of personal blogs offer opportunities for interaction and communication they also raise privacy concerns. There are both potential positive and negative consequences for stigmatized individuals of online (self-) disclosure.

The paper uses a survey with both open-ended and closed questions to examine the extent of online disclosure among adult weight loss bloggers. We are interested to find out why people are willing to disclose information which has a social stigma offline? Do the bloggers remain anonymous or do they disclose their identities? The research shows that weight loss blogs empower many of its writers to use their voice to gain more self-confidence and become more open about stigmatized issues. Overall, weight loss blogging seems to bring more positives than negatives for our respondents. Instead of ‘careless relinquishment of privacy’ by individuals, it seems to be more a case of what Koskela (2004) calls ‘empowering exhibitionism’ whereby the bloggers receive benefits due to their voluntary disclosure of personal information. They make social connections and build up a community of likeminded people which helps them in their struggle to lose their excess weight. Finding a strong online community with likeminded people who give moral support, feedback and reinforcement, does not only boost self-esteem and feelings of happiness, but will also help weight loss bloggers reach their goal. Studies have shown that those who have a social support system in place lose more weight than those who do not. In this sense the internet can be utilized as a technology for the improvement of well-being. In our follow-up study whereby we will interview bloggers and analyse their blogs we will examine in further detail whether these gains are constrained to the online context or whether they also have an impact in the offline interpersonal context.

The first paper reports on work-in-progress towards the development of an automated privacy dictionary, led by Dr Asimina Vasalou at the University of Bath. In a previous study, the prototype theory from the field of linguistics was applied, in order to construct a set of sufficient and inclusive criteria for the conceptualization of privacy. Building on the features emanating from this privacy prototype, the paper explains how the research team will adopt a linguistic approach to study privacy relevant discourse. Apart from its theoretical contribution, this work aims at contributing a new methodological tool to accurately identify privacy relevant language.

The second paper is co-authored by Fadhila Mazanderani, Dr Ian Brown and myself at the University of Oxford. We report on the qualitative research practices employed in the two empirical studies we carried out in relation to technology development and use in HIV care. The discussion focuses on the methodological challenges involved in the study of privacy within this environment. We approach the topic with an ethnographically informed view and emphasise on four themes: the role of institutional, organisational and personal gatekeepers; identity politics around research topics, researchers and participants; the temporal and spatial contingency of access and disclosure; and micro-negotiations around privacy in interview settings. Apart from studying how research subjects understand and enact privacy in their environment, research interactions themselves involve a significant amount of information as to how privacy can be conceptualized. This paper stresses the importance of reflexivity around the ways researchers and participants enact privacy within research interactions. By including this understanding in the analysis of data collected during fieldwork, we can enrich the study of privacy and rethink broader methodological problems of the field.