Military masculinity and the travails of transitioning: Disclosure in social media

Bryan Semaan, Lauren M. Britton, Bryan Dosono

Research output: Chapter in Book/Entry/PoemConference contribution

57 Scopus citations

Abstract

Research suggests that the disclosure of struggles and the connection with sympathetic others are critical during periods of transition. Whereas disclosure has been studied in various contexts, the disclosure strategies of United States (US) veterans transitioning back into civil society has not been explored. Through a qualitative study with 15 veterans re-integrating into civil society, we find that the culture of hyper-masculinity learned and performed during military service leads to challenges to disclosure, or nondisclosure, post-service, negatively impacting how military veterans navigate the transition back into civil society. We explore the disclosure issues and strategies of veterans in both offline and online contexts, finding that veterans used online platforms to navigate the challenges limiting disclosure and connect with supportive resources. We conclude by introducing the concept of delayed disclosure-when people postpone making their struggles known in transition- and provide implications for policy, design and future work to help veterans manage their transitions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCSCW 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages387-403
Number of pages17
ISBN (Electronic)9781450343350
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 25 2017
Event2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2017 - Portland, United States
Duration: Feb 25 2017Mar 1 2017

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW

Other

Other2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPortland
Period2/25/173/1/17

Keywords

  • Crisis
  • Disclosure
  • Disruption
  • Gender
  • ICTs
  • Identity
  • Invisible crises
  • Military
  • Social media
  • Transition
  • Veterans

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Human-Computer Interaction

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