Co-creating digital tools for 'vitalism' with LGBTQI young people

LGBTQI+ young people are a group often positioned within dominant narratives as vulnerable, marginalised and at risk of mental health problems, educational drop out, inequality in access to health and family exile. While these occurrences can be common, working with LGBTQI+ youth has shown us that ‘distress’ is not a stable affective state and that they often develop innovative strategies for resilience, including through the use of digital resources and informal knowledge. This presentation reports on a small-scale pilot project to co-create digital resources to promote the disruption of the dominant narrative of distress and vulnerability, by fostering a sense of place-based belonging, ‘vitalism’, social connection and wellbeing. The project involved a multidisciplinary team (community psychology, sociology, design, digital media and education) and LGBTQI+ young people from the Macedon Ranges, Victoria. The presentation will outline the process and reflect on how well we met three aims: 1) to understand the processes involved in developing a co-creative methodology with young people and how to document that process, 2) to co-created a prototype for a digital resource (e.g. game, app) that LGBTQI young people and their organisation might use to foster social connection and belonging in a rural but not remote area of Victoria, 3) to reflect on the process of working together and the next steps to developing an intervention.

Instagram influences teenage girls posting behaviour, reinforcing gender Stereotype

Social media usage is ubiquitous in the daily lives of teenage girls, who spending on average two hours per day on SNS, making them the heaviest user group. Existing literature infers that teenage girls are engaging in active impression management when self-disclosing and presenting themselves online. Whereby cohorts of teenage girls are conforming to established cultural norms and present and post images of themselves that reinforcing traditional gender norms. Amongst the literature is conflicting explanations to explain behaviour with narcissism often being cited. There is limited research exploring how structures and rules of the tools themselves might be driving and attributing to teenage girl’s online behaviour patterns. This research leveraging social constructionism explores the structures of the SNS tools themselves specifically Instagram and how these rules and processes impact posting behaviours. Qualitative research will be conducted via semi-structured interviews with a diverse set of teenage girls across different levels of socio-economic status. Additionally, parents and educators will be engaged in focus groups to construct a broader context. The research problem is: ‘How are teenage girls using social media, focusing on self-presentation and the role the tools themselves play in influencing posting patterns? The study explores how these socially constructed cultural norms might influence self-presentation and self-disclosure online and how the construction of teenage girls’ identities is being influenced and developed through the medium of SNSs. These findings extend the field of knowledge of teenage girls’ behaviour online, specifically helping teenage girls, parents and educators make good decisions online and in education policy, through gaining a better understanding of the implications of online behaviour.
Keywords: Social Networking Sites, Gender, Self-disclosure, Identity, Self-Objectification, Neoliberalism.

Resilience of a Somali community: The influence of mobile technology in Johannesburg

Numerous studies have formerly been conducted on the exploitation of migrants and the psychological effects thereof. This study sought to explore the resilience of a Somali community residing in Fordsburg/Mayfair, South Africa by inquiring the influence mobile technology particularly mobile phones to migrants living in a new country and society, permitting them access to information and services. This includes housing, employment, business, health transport, education, religious sites. and childcare, as well as the community. A qualitative method was undertaken, using purposive sample of ten Somali migrants. In addition, face to face in –depth interviews were employed with participants between the ages of 20 and 40. The findings indicated the positive impact mobile technology had on the Somali migrants. Moreover the findings indicated that Somalis social integration was strengthened, due to the mobile phones. Equally, resilience be attributed to mobile technology mainly to female Somali migrants.. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Additionally, mobile phones contributed to their social and economic participant. What is interesting is that their mobile phones had become integral to their migration integration. In this regard the Somalis have devised relational and social networks that helped them use this channel for transferring information from destination countries back to origin countries. The religious, cultural, and language differences exposes the Somali community to challenges, as they interact with the local communities, therefore mobile technology plays an integral part in their integration. Consequently, the study concluded that high levels of resilience can be linked to the improved socio–economic status of Somali migrants in South Africa by the combination of mobile phones, the internet and social media- together labelled ‘digital connectivity’s a for migration.

Instagram use, Sense of Place and Sense of Community

Public spaces and meeting venues are elements that can foster the Sense of Community (SoC) by facilitating chance encounters among neighbours (Talen, 2000) and Sense of Place (SoP) by strengthening the connection such places. Nevertheless, in Western local communities the bond between people and communities is decreasing (Bonaiuto et al., 2003) and public places are losing their social meanings (Arcidiacono & Di Napoli, 2010).
As social venues and activities represent social categories that foster individuals’ identification with communities and places (Bonaiuto et al., 2016), being updated about them and participating in them could promote the recovery of the social functions within local communities.
The study deepens the use of Instagram to be updated about social venues and events in the city. Indeed, as photography allows attributing and sharing meanings about one’s life events and contexts (Purcell, 2007), the new online chances to share and search photos about one’s local community social life can have a role with reference to the bonds with it and its places.
The study deepens whether the motive to use Instagram to be updated about social places and events in the city and the subsequent Instagram behaviours associate with higher SoP and SoC, through sequential mediation analyses. A questionnaire including items ad hoc for Instagram motive and use, the SoP scale (Jorgensen & Stedman, 2001) and the Brief Sense of Community Scale (Peterson et al., 2007) was administered to 350 Italian respondents. The results show that these Instagram motive and use associate with higher SoP, B = 0.030, p < .05, and SoC, B = 0.108, p < .001, and higher SoC via higher SoP, B = 0.026, p < .05. Thus, the idea that sharing photos about community’s social life among its members can foster individuals’ bond to it and its places will be discussed.