Recovering Sexuality after Childbirth. What Strategies Do Women Adopt? A Qualitative Study

This study aimed to determine the strategies used by women to adapt to the changes that affect the first sexual relations after childbirth. A qualitative study with a phenomenological approach used three data collection techniques (in-depth interviews, discussion groups, and online forums). Thirty-six women in the first six months postpartum participated in the study, from physiotherapy centers with maternal child specialties in several locations in Spain. Women with different types of delivery, presence or absence of perineal trauma during delivery, previous deliveries, and different types of breastfeeding were included. Among the strategies, closeness support and understanding were the ones that women used to adjust to the new situation, in order to improve the couple’s relationship, intimacy, and cope with the significant changes that appear in the first six months postpartum. Changes and adaptations in sexual practices become a tool for coping with a new sexuality, especially if it is affected by the presence of pain or discomfort associated with physical changes. Personal time facilitates emotional management and improvement of emotional changes related to the demands of motherhood. Accepting the changes that motherhood brings is critical to dealing with the new situation. Strategies used by postpartum women focus on acceptance, self-care, partner, couple time, personal time, and adapting encounters. The findings of this study are of interest to health professionals as they provide insight into how women cope with the changes that appear in the first six months postpartum. In this way, the findings will be able to transmit to couples the alternatives they can adopt before the resumption of sexual relations to improve satisfaction both as a couple and in terms of sexuality after childbirth.

Mothering against motherhood: doula work, xenohospitality and the idea of the momrade

Today, a new vein of queer Marxist-feminist family-abolitionist theorising is reviving contemporary feminists’ willingness to imagine, politically, what women's liberationists in the 1970s called ‘mothering against motherhood’. Concurrently, the jokey portmanteau ‘momrade’, i.e. mom + comrade, has circulated persistently in the twenty-first century on online forums maintained by communities of mothers and/or leftists. This article asks: what if, in the name of abolishing the family, we took the joke entirely seriously? What makes a ‘mom’ a ‘momrade’, or vice versa? In what ways does the work of reproduction, conceivably, actively participate in class struggles, producing new worlds (and un-producing others)? How do the collective arts of mothering unmake selves? And how does the verb ‘to mother’ work to abolish the present state of things? The chosen point of departure for exploring these questions is the concept of xenohospitality; a term I borrow from Helen Hester – one of the authors of the Xenofeminist Manifesto – who defines it as openness to the alien, a definition I link closely to ‘comradeliness’. Further, the meaning of the term ‘family abolition’, here, is aptly summed up by the formula ‘xenofam ≥ biofam’; to abolish the family is not to destroy relationships of care and nurturance, but on the contrary, to expand and proliferate them. Reflecting on the conditions of possibility for such universally xenofamilial – that is to say, comradely – kin relations, this article implicitly argues for utopia(nism) in feminist kinship studies. It grounds this utopianism, however, in first-hand experiences of informal ‘death doula’ labour. The labour of mothering one's mother is offered as a potential practice of un-mothering oneself and others. In fact, the argument pivots on these auto-ethnographic observations about maternal bereavement, because the event of the author's mother's death interrupted and intruded upon the feminist theorising involved.

Negotiating identity by transnational Chinese students during COVID-19

For some years now, there has been an increase in the number of Chinese students travelling abroad to pursue higher education. The outbreak of COVID-19 has created new challenges for international students around the world. Based on an analysis of online forums during the pandemic (January–July 2020), we focus on the challenges Chinese transnational students have been facing. From the state's point of view, being at the front of China's internationalization progress, the students are expected to have both a ‘vision of globalization’ (国际化视野) as well as a deep ‘Chinese feeling’ (中国情怀). However, in practice during the pandemic, the students found it extremely difficult to achieve a balance between their multiple identities. In this article, we argue that discrepancies between the students’ identities may be due to the pandemic having highlighted several existing conflicts that have so far received only meagre attention or were even overlooked.

COVID-19 Vaccine Perceptions in the Initial Phases of US Vaccine Roll-out: An Observational Study on Reddit

Background: Open online forums like Reddit provide an opportunity to quantitatively examine COVID-19 vaccine perceptions early in the vaccine timeline. We examine COVID-19 misinformation on Reddit following vaccine scientific announcements, in the initial phases of the vaccine timeline. Methods: We collected all posts on Reddit from January 1 2020 - December 14 2020 (n=266,840) that contained both COVID-19 and vaccine-related keywords. We used topic modeling to understand changes in word prevalence within topics after the release of vaccine trial data. Social network analysis was also conducted to determine the relationship between Reddit communities (subreddits) that shared COVID-19 vaccine posts, and the movement of posts between subreddits. Results: There was an association between a Pfizer press release reporting 90\% efficacy and increased discussion on vaccine misinformation. We observed an association between Johnson and Johnson temporarily halting its vaccine trials and reduced misinformation. We found that information skeptical of vaccination was first posted in a subreddit (r/Coronavirus) which favored accurate information and then reposted in subreddits associated with antivaccine beliefs and conspiracy theories (e.g. conspiracy, NoNewNormal). Conclusions: Our findings can inform the development of interventions where individuals determine the accuracy of vaccine information, and communications campaigns to improve COVID-19 vaccine perceptions, early in the vaccine timeline. Such efforts can increase individual- and population-level awareness of accurate and scientifically sound information regarding vaccines and thereby improve attitudes about vaccines, especially in the early phases of vaccine roll-out. Further research is needed to understand how social media can contribute to COVID-19 vaccination services.

Game-Assisted Social Activism: Game Literacy in Hong Kong’s Anti-Extradition Movement

This paper describes the appropriation of video game culture for discursive use during the 2019–20 Hong Kong anti-extradition movement, with participants relying on game argot for mass protest communication and mobilization purposes, and employing game frameworks (especially from MMORPGs) for organizing protest actions. Data from online forums are used to present examples of video game rhetoric and narratives in protest-related online discourses, to speculate on their symbolic meanings, and to examine ways that borrowed aspects of game culture influenced movement activities. After describing ways that game culture spilled over into social movements, we highlight examples of gaming literacy during dynamic protest situations. Our evidence indicates that the combination of game culture and online gaming literacy strengthened activist toolkits and intensified the “be water” nature of a social movement that many describe as leaderless.

Does Social Media Accelerate Product Recalls? Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry

Social media has become a vital platform for voicing product-related experiences that may not only reveal product defects, but also impose pressure on firms to act more promptly than before. This study scrutinizes the rarely studied relationship between these voices and the speed of product recalls in the context of the pharmaceutical industry in which social media pharmacovigilance is becoming increasingly important for the detection of drug safety signals. Using Federal Drug Administration drug enforcement reports and social media data crawled from online forums and Twitter, we investigate whether social media can accelerate the product recall process in the context of drug recalls. Results based on discrete-time survival analyses suggest that more adverse drug reaction discussions on social media lead to a higher hazard rate of the drug being recalled and, thus, a shorter time to recall. To better understand the underlying mechanism, we propose the information effect, which captures how extracting information from social media helps detect more signals and mine signals faster to accelerate product recalls, and the publicity effect, which captures how firms and government agencies are pressured by public concerns to initiate speedy recalls. Estimation results from two mechanism tests support the existence of these conceptualized channels underlying the acceleration hypothesis of social media. This study offers new insights for firms and policymakers concerning the power of social media and its influence on product recalls.

Development of online forums with the colles model in improving student knowledge management

The purpose of this research is the development of online forum-based learning media to improve Knowledge Management in Bogor Polbagtan students with more flexibility in terms of cost, time and place. This research uses the Research and Development (R & D) method by developing learning media in the form of online forums to improve knowledge management consisting of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. In developing instructional media in the form of online forums, the steps refer to the research design and development of the Borg and Gall models. The subjects of this study were students of Bogor Polbagtan, meanwhile, to measure the impact of this study, using the COLLES method. Based on research findings in the field, the results of data analysis, and reflections on every trial conducted, Research and Development produces learning media, online forums for improving knowledge management among students. While the impact on the development of online forums using the COLLES method obtained a score of 4.07 which is at a good interval, which means students are comfortable and accept learning media in the form of online forums for learning tools to increase Knowledge Management.

Consumer-generated discourse on cannabis as a medicine: Review of techniques (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Medicinal cannabis is increasingly being used for a variety of physical and mental health conditions. Social media and online health platforms provide a valuable real time and cost-effective surveillance resource for individuals who use cannabis for medicinal purposes. This is especially important considering evidence for the optimal use of medicinal cannabis is still emerging. Despite the online marketing of medicinal cannabis to consumers, currently, there is no robust, regulatory framework to measure clinical health benefit or individual experience of adverse events. OBJECTIVE We reviewed research approaches and methodologies of studies that utilize online user-generated text to study the use of cannabis as a medicine. METHODS We conducted the review using PRISMA guidelines, searching Medline, Scopus, Web of Science and Embase databases from their respective inceptions until May 2021. Studies were included if they aimed to understand online user-generated text related to health conditions where cannabis is used as a medicine, or where health was mentioned in general cannabis conversations. RESULTS Thirty-eight articles were included in the review. Of these, Twitter was used three times more than other computer-generated sources including Reddit, online forums, GoFundMe, YouTube, and Google Trends. Analytic methods included sentiment assessment, thematic analysis (manual and automatic), social network analysis, and geographic analysis. CONCLUSIONS This study is the first to systematically review techniques utilized by research on consumer-generated text for understanding cannabis as a medicine. It is increasingly evident that consumer-generated data offers opportunities for a greater understanding of individual behavior, population health outcomes. Yet research using this data has some limitations that include difficulties in establishing sample representativeness, and a lack of methodological best practice. To address these, publicly available de-identified annotated data sources; determination of posts origins (organizations, bots, power users, or ordinary individuals); and more powerful analytical techniques can be employed.

Use of an online forum for relatives of people with psychosis and bipolar disorder: a multi-method study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Relatives of people with psychosis or bipolar disorder experience high levels of distress but typically are not offered the support they need. Peer online forums may offer a solution, but knowledge about who uses them, how and why is limited. The current study reported on online forum usage during the REACT trial [21]. OBJECTIVE We aimed to report: (1) who used the forum and why; (2) how sociodemographic factors are associated with participation; (3) the relationships between frequency, type of use, and outcomes; and (4) how the forum was used. METHODS Relationships between key socio-demographic characteristics, levels of forum use, and distress were statistically analysed. We used thematic and semantic analysis to understand the reasons relatives joined the forum and the key topics initiated by them. We also used the UCREL Semantic Analysis System (USAS) to compare how relatives and REACT Supporters (moderators) used the forum. RESULTS 348 participants from REACT had complete web-usage data and were included in this study. The forum was accessed by 59% of relatives across the whole age range with no significant associations between sociodemographic factors and forum participation, or between level/type of use and relatives’ distress levels. Relatives joined the forum primarily to find people in similar circumstances, express concerns and talk about stressful events. Relatives were concerned most about recent events, negative emotions linked to caring, experiences of conflict/threat, and concerns about suicide. These posts underscored both the challenges relatives were facing and that they felt safe to share these in this context. CONCLUSIONS Whilst only a proportion of REACT participants engaged actively with its forum they are widely distributed across age and other sociodemographic groupings. Relatives used the forum for information, support and guidance and to offer detailed information about their experiences. The topics raised highlight the burden carried by relatives and the potential value of easy access, moderated, peer supported forums in helping relatives manage the challenges they face.