Cancel culture is a phenomenon that has grown out of today's digitalization. It could be described as a practice to counteract injustices in society by withdrawing support for, often, a public figure or company that has expressed or behaved unacceptably according to the majority of people. In recent years, cancel culture has been a recurring term when socio-political questions engage a larger group of citizens and most of them on social media find it socially unacceptable. However, is it possible that cancel culture is used in the same way on peers as on public figures? The purpose of this research study is to build an understanding of how Swedish young university students reason around cancel culture, as well as how their attitude may alter when it comes to public figures and peers, while also diving deeper into the internet phenomenon's significance on individuals' self-disclosure online.  The three following research questions were used:RQ1: How do Swedish young university students reason around canceling public figures? RQ2: How do Swedish young university students reason around canceling peers?RQ3: How does “Cancel Culture” influence an individual’s level of self-disclosure on social media?  In this study, an inductive and empirical approach through Grounded Theory was used, which is a qualitative method that enables you to study a particular phenomenon and discover new theories that are based on the collection and analysis of real-world data. One focus group with five participants was held to gain an understanding of participants' perceptions of the phenomenon and to find patterns in similarities and differences. Further, a total of six semi-structured interviews were held to gain deeper insight into how people think, reason, and feel about cancel culture. The data were first open-coded into 34 labels and later combined into six categories to be further analyzed. The conclusion of this study is that Swedish young university students have a nuanced mindset when it comes to cancel culture and that they do not necessarily use cancel culture online to influence. Instead, they talk to their closer circle because they suppose that they have a greater chance of making a difference in situations when they can motivate their opinions in real life. This reveals that those who represent the target group in our study have a low level of self-disclosure.

In this dissertation the author embarks on a journey of storying and re-storying her life. Autoethnographic evocative personal narratives are used as the method of presentation. Congruent with a postmodern stance, the text repositions the reader as a co-participant in dialogue. In this journey there is a move from a reductionistic understanding of "self" to an understanding of "self" as socially constructed, multiple and changing processes. The author's process of differentiation is embodied and informed by this changing view of "self" as part of, being informed by, shaping and being shaped by the conversations she co-creates in dialogical contexts. This means taking a double-sided, reflexive view of relationships and systems, opens a space for a flexible way of being and imparts sensitivity to the discourses she co-creates. This journey entails taking action that keeps a self-reflexive dialogue going, allowing for different voices to emerge and various encounters to become possible. / Psychology / M.A. (Clinical Psychology)

Although a substantial body of research exists on gender differences in Computer Mediated Communication, relatively little empirical attention has been directed toward the special case of CMC - Instant Messenger (IM) and the area of self-disclosure. This study analyzes gender differences and relationships in self-disclosure in the away message of MSN of 329 male and female Taiwanese university students. Applying the five subscales of self-disclosure by Wheeless and Grotz (Wheeless, 1978; Wheeless & Grotz, 1976) and the six topic areas of self-disclosure by Jourard and Lasakow (1958) revealed the following results: Findings show that males and females often do not show the gender differences anymore, which were previously found in face-to-face communication on certain aspects of self-disclosure e.g. frequency, depth, breadth, honesty or accuracy and valence of self-disclosure. However, findings pointing out the different motives and the use of self-disclosure on IM are similar to face-to-face communication, such as females prefer discussing their “personality” while male MSN users prefer “work or studies” especially the more buddies they have. Also males disclose with awareness and intention suggesting the make use of selective self-presentation (Walther, 1996) for rather males than females. Female MSN users write more impulsively in their away message, however they are found to be more selective than males in to whom they chose to disclose or not by blocking buddies. The number of buddies on the buddy list seems to have hardly any effect on males’ and females’ self-disclosure. The gender of buddies on the buddy list as a moderating factor showed that males feel more comfortable (honest and less understated) when disclosing to females. Extra findings include that for both gender self-disclosures on IM is not less honest and not exaggerated, rather understated. Previous findings in face-to-face communication on preferred topics of self-disclosure of both genders of Asian background were confirmed on IM. On IM, self-disclosure by males and females seem to be free of the importance of the degree of social distance within Chinese society as hardly any primary groups and secondary groups but almost only mixed groups of buddies on buddy lists were found.

This study proposes a social and emotional disclosure model for understanding the mechanism that explains sharing intimate information on social media (Twitter). Previous research has indicated that some aspects of social, emotional, and attitudinal information processing are involved in disclosure of intimate information. However, these factors have been considered in isolation. This study proposes and tests a theoretically grounded model that brings all of these factors together by combining individual and group social media behaviors and online information processing in the realm of online social movements. The core explanatory model considers the impact of peer response, emotional evaluation, personal relevance, issue orientation, and motivation to post online on intimate information disclosure online. A path analysis building on four Poisson multiple regressions conducted on 28,629 #MeToo tweets evaluates the relationships proposed in the explanatory model. Results indicate that emotional evaluation and motivation to post online have direct, positive impacts on online disclosure. Other factors such as peer response, issue orientation, and personal relevance have negative direct relationships with online disclosure. Motivation to post online mediates the effects of emotional evaluation, issue orientation, and personal relevance on online disclosure while issue orientation mediates the effect of personal relevance on motivation to post online. This study offers findings that have use for practitioners interested in hashtag virality and to social media users interested in social influence and online information sharing.

This research study examined what the motivations and consequences of self-disclosure on Instagram were as well as its correlation with Impression Management Theory. The research used a 37 question survey which was distributed on social media, through the Department of Media and Communication at ETSU as well as a public speaking class. There were 232 participants in this study who were 18 or older and used Instagram. Research found that individuals’ self disclose using levels of relationship management, showing off, information sharing and habitual behavior. Future research includes the opportunity to incorporate a sample of participants across different cultures to analyze the differences in self-disclosure styles on Instagram.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, page: 3551. Adviser: Christine Markham. Includes bibliographical references.

Expressive Writing (EW) involves writing in an emotionally expressive manner about an experienced event, and has been shown to be related to increases in psychological and physical well-being. The purpose of the current study was to extend previous work by examining how self-presentation affects psychological and physical gains following the EW task. Forty one participants who have experienced a traumatic event were recruited from the community and given either an EW or control activity. Measures assessing self-presentation and various indices of health were administered at baseline and again at one month follow-up to determine changes in symptomatology. Results indicated that higher levels of perfectionistic self-presentation were significantly associated with less improvement in symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress. Further, a nonsignificant moderation trend emerged whereby higher levels of perfectionistic self-presentation were associated with more improvement in symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress in the EW group but not control group.

Expressive Writing (EW) involves writing in an emotionally expressive manner about an experienced event, and has been shown to be related to increases in psychological and physical well-being. The purpose of the current study was to extend previous work by examining how self-presentation affects psychological and physical gains following the EW task. Forty one participants who have experienced a traumatic event were recruited from the community and given either an EW or control activity. Measures assessing self-presentation and various indices of health were administered at baseline and again at one month follow-up to determine changes in symptomatology. Results indicated that higher levels of perfectionistic self-presentation were significantly associated with less improvement in symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress. Further, a nonsignificant moderation trend emerged whereby higher levels of perfectionistic self-presentation were associated with more improvement in symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress in the EW group but not control group.

The present study proposed to investigate the effects of level of acculturation and of language of the therapy interview on self-disclosure by Mexican-American women. It was predicted that self-disclosure would be affected by both level of acculturation and by the language of the initial therapy interview. The principal implication of this finding is that for the first-generation Mexican-American woman, that is, a woman who has not acculturated to the mainstream society, the language in which therapy is conducted constitutes a significant factor in predicting whether she is likely to self disclose and thereby benefit from the therapy. The findings of this study suggest that less acculturated Mexican-American women would be more likely to utilize mental health services if they are available in Spanish.

An HIV-positive diagnosis can be an overwhelming and traumatic experience. This study explores the experiences of receiving an HIV-positive diagnosis. Employing an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), a sample of the initial posts from threads on an online forum, was collected and explored, in order to determine the dominant themes from the experiences expressed in the posts, as well as the support sought from the forum. The online forum was accessed as an unobtrusive observer, and posts from January to December 2015 were explored. The online forum provides a platform for disclosure following an HIV-positive diagnosis, when anxiety and fear of stigma can impact on an individual’s ability to disclose to their social support network of family and friends. The experiences expressed on the online forum reflect the emotional, mental and physical impact of an HIV-positive diagnosis on an individual. The findings in this study reflected themes of shock, guilt and hopelessness, and concerns and fears regarding disclosure and stigma associated with HIV, as well as the importance of social support for the coping mechanisms of individuals after receiving an HIV-positive diagnosis. This research demonstrates the importance of Internet accessibility for information and support for chronic illnesses, such as HIV, and the role of the online forum platform for providing a safe environment for individuals recently diagnosed HIVpositive.