Storytelling of breast cancer in cyberspace
Subtitle: on line counteractions to the isolation and demeaning of illness experience
Series: Videnskabsbutikkens rapportserie -- nr. 69
Publisher: University of Copenhagen, Videnskabsbutikken
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Copenhagen
Language: eng
Number of pages: 109
Subjects: Breast -- Cancer -- Patients -- Biography.; Breast -- Cancer -- Patients -- Counselling of.; Cancer -- Patients -- Services for.; Cancer -- Psychological aspects.; Cancer -- Computer network resources.; Internet.; Empowerment
Genres: Biography.; Thesis
Description: This research brings focus to the experience of living with breast cancer, as it seeks to
explore the ways in which stories in Cyberspace are created as imaginary and
communal counteractions to the privatization of illness experience.
Drawing the analytical terms of private and public realms from Hannah
Arendt (1958), the research seeks insight to how storytelling works as an intermediary
to experience. The Internet is approached as a strategy of empowerment where
storytelling forms a central core to the act of restoring social connection to the world
by bridging the private and the public realm. The study draws narrative and action into a close
interpretive relationship, by a focus on storytelling as counteraction to illness, stressing
the therapeutic potential of storytelling in enabling a person to live with illness.
The ethnographic research which forms the base of this study was undertaken in 2000 at
the Scandinavian Breast Cancer Mailing List (SCAN-BC-list) on the Internet. A
virtual meeting place open to people with breast cancer. The fieldwork was shaped as
a case-study, focusing on the disruption experienced by women encountering breast
cancer and the counteractions they employ to overcome suffering. Reflecting on this
fieldwork the thesis argue that fieldwork in Cyberspace holds the same challenges and
possibilities as fieldwork anywhere else.
The study finds that the mailing list forms an imagined community on the Internet, which has
features similar to face-to- face support groups, but also distinct traits owing to the
electronic nature of communication. Storytelling on the mailing list is a dynamic
process through which the reality of breast cancer is reworked actively. Metaphors
employed by the women in storytelling form a key practice, as a way to move from
isolation to sympathy, understanding and connection with a social world.
Notes: Originally presented as the author thesis (master)--University of Copenhagen, 2002.

"April 2002."

Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: class: section