Departmental Papers (ASC)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
3-11-2013
Publication Source
Journal for the American Society of Information Science and Technology
Volume
64
Issue
5
Start Page
981
Last Page
991
DOI
10.1002/asi.22800
Abstract
When information practices are understood to be shaped by social context, privilege and marginalization alternately affect not only access to, but also use of information resources. In the context of information, privilege, and community, politics of marginalization drive stigmatized groups to develop collective norms for locating, sharing, and hiding information. In this paper, we investigate the information practices of a subcultural community whose activities are both stigmatized and of uncertain legal status: the extreme body modification community. We use the construct of information poverty to analyze the experiences of 18 people who had obtained, were interested in obtaining, or had performed extreme body modification procedures. With a holistic understanding of how members of this community use information, we complicate information poverty by working through concepts of stigma and community norms. Our research contributes to human information behavior scholarship on marginalized groups and to Internet studies research on how communities negotiate collective norms of information sharing online.
Copyright/Permission Statement
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Lingel, J., & boyd, d. (2013). “Keep it secret, keep it safe.” Information practices, information norms and stigma. Journal for the American Society of Information Science and Technology, 64(5): 981-991. It has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22800. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-820227.html#terms.
Recommended Citation
Lingel, J., & Boyd, D. (2013). “Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe”: Information Poverty, Information Norms, and Stigma. Journal for the American Society of Information Science and Technology, 64 (5), 981-991. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.22800
Date Posted:09 July 2018
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
At the time of publication, author Jessa Lingel was affiliated with Rutgers University. Currently, she is a faculty member at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.