https://doi.org/10.4081/qrmh.2022.10437
“Life is about trying to find a better place to live”: Discourses of dwelling in a pro-recovery suicide forum
Submitted: 2 March 2022
Accepted: 27 March 2022
Published: 31 May 2022
Accepted: 27 March 2022
Abstract Views: 1770
PDF: 764
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Authors
In the two decades since the advent of Web 2.0, scholars of cybersuicide have identified many beneficial and harmful uses of the internet. However, the discursive meanings interactionally created by suicide website users have scarcely been attended to. The present study uses the theory and method of cultural discourse analysis (CuDA) to arrive at meanings about place that radiate from online communication among users of SuicideForum.com (SF), a pro-recovery website. Analyses of 2,119 posts across 131 threads reveal two overarching discursive themes. The first speaks to problematic discourses about place, including the role of placelessness and entrapment in the genesis of suicidality and its affective states, leading to further diminution of experiential worlds. The second theme taps into participants’ notions of what constitutes safe spaces, such as the presence of empathetic others who respect one’s timetable for personal disclosure, and the freedom to experiment with new ways of inhabiting the world. The study has numerous implications for clinical practice, including recasting psychological disturbances in terms of self-world relations and reconsidering involuntary psychiatric hospitalization in light of forum participants’ preoccupation with entrapment.
Twohey M, Dance GJX. Where the despairing log on, and learn ways to die. The New York Times [Internet]. 2021 Dec 9 [cited 2022 Feb 28]: A3. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/09/us/where-the-despairing-log-on.html
Seko Y. “Suicide machine” seekers: transgressing suicidal taboos online. Learn Inq 2008;2:181-99.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11519-008-0035-3
Baym N, Markham A. Introduction: making smart choices on shifting ground. In: Markham A, Baym N, eds. Internet inquiry: conversations about method. Thousand Oaks: SAGE; 2009. pp. vii-xix.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483329086
Ahmad FB, Anderson RN. The leading causes of death in the U.S. for 2020. JAMA 2021;325:1829-30.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2021.5469
Westerlund M. The production of pro-suicide content on the internet: a counter-discourse activity. New Media Soc 2011;14:764-80.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444811425221
Ozawa-de Silva C. Too lonely to die alone: internet suicide pacts and existential suffering in Japan. Cult Med Psychiatry 2008;32:516-51.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-008-9108-0
Ozawa-de Silva C. Shared death: sociality and internet group suicide in Japan. Transcult Psychiatry 2010;47:392-418.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461510370239
Recupero P. Suicide and the internet. In: Simon RI, Hales RE, eds. Textbook of suicide assessment and management. 2nd ed. Arlington: American Psychiatric Publishing; 2012. pp 515-38.
Stamenkovic M. In full view: cybersuicide, hypervisual self and public showcase of death (for real). Medijski Dijalozi 2011;5:73-101.
Alvarez M. The suicidal self in cyberspace: discursive constructions of identity in a pro-recovery suicide forum. Front Commun 2021;6. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2021.674893/full#B45
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.674893
Ekman I, Söderberg S. “Across the street – not down the road”: staying alive through deliberate self-harm. In: Sher L, Vilens A, eds. Internet and suicide. Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers; 2009. pp 221-32.
Murphy G. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and new technologies in suicide prevention: Crisis Chat and social media initiatives. In Mishara BL, Kerkhof JFM, eds. Suicide prevention and new technologies: evidence based practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan; 2013. pp 111-22.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137351692_9
Mewton L, Andrews G. Cognitive behaviour therapy via the internet for depression: a useful strategy to reduce suicidal ideation. J Affec Disord 2015;170:78-84.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2014.08.038
Mishara BL, Côté LP. Suicide prevention and new technologies: towards evidence based practice. In: Mishara BL, Kerkhof JFM, eds. Suicide prevention and new technologies: evidence based practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan; 2013. pp 1-23.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137351692_1
Quinnett P, Baker A. Web-based suicide prevention education: innovations in research, training, and practice. In: Sher L, Vilens A, eds. Internet and suicide. Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers; 2009. pp 41-61.
Alvarez M. Discursive tensions and contradictions: a cultural analysis of an online self-harm forum. In: Bareiss M, ed. Communicating with, about, and through self-harm: scarred discourse. Lanham: Lexington Books; 2020. pp 113-133.
Mishara BL, Kerkhof JFM, eds. Suicide prevention and new technologies: evidence based practice. London: Palgrave Macmillan; 2013.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137351692
Sher L, Vilens A, eds. Internet and suicide. Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers; 2009.
White J, Marsh I, Kral MJ, Morris J, eds. Critical suicidology: transforming suicide research and prevention for the 21st century. Vancouver: UBC Press; 2016.
Katz JE, Rice, RE. Social consequences of Internet use: access, involvement, and interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press; 2002.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/6292.001.0001
Giles DC, Newbold J. ‘Is this normal?’: the role of category predicates in constructing mental illness online. JCMC 2013;18:476-90.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12022
Markham A. Life online: researching real experience in virtual space. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press; 1998.
Moores S. Media/theory: thinking about media and communications. New York: Routledge; 2005. p 169.
Willson M. Technically together: rethinking community within techno-society. New York: Peter Lang; 2006.
Baym N. Personal connections in the digital age. Malden: Polity; 2010.
Meyers E. Dishing dirt in the digital age: celebrity gossip blogs and participatory media culture. New York: Peter Lang; 2013.
Hecht M. The promise of communication in large-scale, community-based research. In: Carbaugh D, Buzzanell PM, eds. Distinctive qualities in communication research. New York: Routledge; 2010. pp 53-72.
Hymes D. Models of interaction of language and social life. In: Gumperz J, Hymes D, eds. Directions in sociolinguistics: the ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston; 1972. pp 35-71.
Tracy K, Robles JS. Everyday talk: building and reflecting identities. 2nd ed. New York: Guilford Press; 2013. p 25.
Carbaugh D. A communication theory of culture. In: Kurylo A, ed. Inter/cultural communication: representation and construction of culture. Thousand Oaks: Sage; 2012. pp 69-87.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781544304106.n4
Carbaugh D. Cultural discourse analysis: communication practices and intercultural encounters. J Intercult Commun Res 2007;36:167-82.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17475750701737090
Philipsen G. The prospect for cultural communication. In: Kincaid DL, ed. Communication theory: Eastern and Western perspectives. Thousand Oaks: SAGE; 1987. pp 245-54.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-407470-5.50025-6
Carbaugh D, Gibson T, Milburn T. A view of communication and culture: scenes in an ethnic cultural center and a private college. In: Kovacic B, ed. Emerging theories of human communication. Albany: SUNY Press; 1997. pp 1-24.
Scollo M, Milburn T, eds. Engaging and transforming global communication through cultural discourse analysis: a tribute to Donal Carbaugh. Lanham: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; 2019.
Flanigan J, Alvarez M. Cultural discourse analysis as critical analysis: a view from Twin Oaks and SuicideForum.com. In: Scollo M, Milburn T, eds. Engaging and transforming global communication through cultural discourse analysis: a tribute to Donal Carbaugh. Lanham: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; 2019. pp 73-90.
Stern SR. Encountering distressing information in online research: a consideration of legal and ethical responsibilities. New Media Soc 2003;5:249-66.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444803005002006
Gergen, K. From mirroring to world-making: research as future forming. J Theory Soc Behav 2014;45:287-310.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12075
Scherr S, Haim M, Arendt F. Equal access to online information? Google’s suicide-prevention disparities may amplify a global digital divide. New Media Soc 2019;21:562-82.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818801010
Smithson J, Sharkey S, Hewis E, et al. Problem presentation and responses on an online forum for young people who self-harm. Discourse Stud 2011;13:487-501.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445611403356
Sender K. The makeover: reality television and reflexive audiences. New York: NYU Press; 2012. p 115.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814740699.001.0001
Sharkey S, Smithson J, Hewis E, et al. Supportive interchanges and face-work as ‘protective talk’ in an online self-harm support forum. Commun Med 2012;9:71-82.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1558/cam.v9i1.71
Marciano A. Living the VirtuReal: negotiating transgender identity in cyberspace. JCMC 2014;19:824-38.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12081
Marsh I. Critiquing contemporary suicidology. In: White J, Marsh I, Kral MJ, Morris J, eds. Critical suicidology: transforming suicide research and prevention for the 21st century. Vancouver: UBC Press; 2016. pp 15-30.
Orgad S. Media representation and the global imagination. Malden: Polity; 2012.
Goffman E. On face-work. In: Interaction ritual: an analysis of ritual elements in social interaction. Garden City: Doubleday; 1967. pp 5-45.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203788387-2
Whitaker R. Mad in America: bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill. 2nd ed. New York: Basic; 2010.
Hedtke L, Winslade J. The crafting of grief: constructing aesthetic responses to loss. New York: Routledge; 2017.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315686806
Atwood GE. The abyss of madness. New York: Routledge; 2012.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203697832
How to Cite
Alvarez, Mike. 2022. “‘Life Is about Trying to Find a Better Place to live’: Discourses of Dwelling in a Pro-Recovery Suicide Forum”. Qualitative Research in Medicine and Healthcare 6 (1). https://doi.org/10.4081/qrmh.2022.10437.
PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.