Men’s social media stories of Crohn’s disease: A dialogical analysis of three cases

Despite distinct sex and gender differences in the presentation and manifestation of Crohn’s disease, little research to date has considered men’s particular experiences. Furthermore, whilst hegemonic masculine ideals have been reported to negatively impact men’s mental and physical health, increasingly research has emphasised that men engage in a diverse and varying range of practices, including those beneficial to health. One such practice is the posting of their illness experiences on social media. Given long-term conditions can lead to a sense of disruption, the flexibility of social media - its ability to multimodally capture fluctuating, everyday aspects of illness - makes it arguably well-suited to capturing chronic illness narratives. The interactive nature of storytelling online means that a dialogical narrative approach, based on a relational epistemology, is particularly useful. Combined with an intrinsic case study methodology, this study therefore asked, “How do men who post publicly on social media author themselves and their experiences of Crohn’s disease?” Three participants were recruited, all of whom had a diagnosis of Crohn’s and posted to both a blog and other social networking sites (SNS) about their illness. Two resided in Canada, and one in the UK. All were white, cis-gendered and in heterosexual relationships. For each participant, two years’ of multimodal social media data was downloaded. After screening, in-depth analysis was conducted using a dialogical narrative approach. Pre-interview summaries were then developed and provided to participants in both written and video format. Follow-up semi-structured interviews took place via video call and further analysis followed. The analyses are presented in six individual chapters, divided into two overarching sections. The social media analyses highlighted the participants’ preferred forms of authorship, the different genres and/or particular configurations of time and space they used, and what this meant in relation to their Crohn’s, as well as the functions of their social media use. In the interview analyses, the participants’ responses to my interpretations were analysed alongside the social media cases. The key findings emphasised the participants’ different responses to the lack of predictability caused by Crohn’s and the resultant impact of this on their lives and embodied experiences; the different ways participants used social media to gain a greater sense of control over their stories and identities, as well as a sense of community; and how the degree of participants’ emotional engagement with both their own experiences and with others on their social media provided important insights into the interaction between masculine identities and illness. Finally, the study appealed to a consideration of how such novel methods may be utilised in future research and within therapeutic contexts.

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