Date of Award

1-1-2012

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Specialization

Communication and Leadership

School or Department

School of Leadership Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Carolyn Cunningham

Second Advisor

Dr. Heather Crandall

Abstract

This thesis examined how women who have or are affected by endometriosis use the social blogging site LiveJournal as a means of communicating about the disorder, and what gratifications they received in the process. The philosophical framework for this study stemmed from Martin Buber’s (1923/1958) work on “dialogic ethics.” The theory that grounded this study is a version of Uses and Gratifications theory that has been expanded so that it is applicable to social media. The data was gathered as part of a content analysis study in which blog posts and their comments were collected, coded, and analyzed. The results show that women use LiveJournal to fulfill one or more of the following communication needs: cognitive, personal integrative, affective, and social integrative. The results additionally showed that depending on the blog post content and responses received, the gratifications found to occur were: acknowledgment, advice, information, empathy, well wishes, emotional support, validation, the benefit of a different perspective, catharsis, conversation, sympathy, and appreciation. These findings will serve to further communication studies in regards to social blogging, particularly health communication on social media platforms.

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