Stigma, Secrets, and the Human Condition: Seeking to Remedy Alienation in PostSecret's Digitally Mediated Environment

Abstract

While digitally mediated environments have altered how human communication takes place, they do not necessarily alter the human condition of alienation. Applying key principles from Goffman's Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (1963), the popular blog PostSecret offers ways in which anonymous users attempt to remedy the alienations linked with the stigmatic act of secret keeping. Through imaginative, associative, and vicarious conversations, the blog purports to offer the unconditional acceptance necessary to remedy the alienations. Because of the complications of anonymity in the nonreal reality of the internet, the blog can offer only echoes of acceptance. Although some of the stigma literature argues that self-acceptance or assertions of power are the strongest solutions to stigma's negative effects, this article extends the stigma construct with the suggestion that vulnerability might be a viable option to remedy the attendant alienations correlated with stigma.

“I am a cheerleader, but secretly I deal drugs” Authenticity through Concealment and Disclosure

“…The only known academic study of PostSecret to date explores it as an online community that “seeks to remedy alienation” and “self‐estrangement” (Wood and Ward :593). Wood and Ward () argue that the real and imagined conversations between those who submit to and those who read PostSecret help ameliorate stigma and manage alienation by establishing a community of acceptance. This study differs in two crucial ways.…”

Development and Validation of the Self-Acceptance Scale for Persons with Early Blindness: The SAS-EB

“…However, after an analysis of the discussions from the two focus groups and in accordance with studies of Brittain [45] , Hughes [46] , Lobianco and Sheppard-Jones [47] , Sahin and Akyol [48] , Tripp [49] , and Watson [50] , we found that for individuals with disabilities, an important source of negative judgment comes from social stigmas. Stigma is an attribute that others perceive to be deeply discrediting [51] - [52] . In disabled persons, stigma usually demonstrates discrimination, avoidance, social exclusion [49] , invalidation, and disfigurement [46] .…”

From ‘What the F#@% is a Facebook?’ to ‘Who Doesn’t Use Facebook?’: The role of criminal lifestyles in the adoption and use of the Internet

“…Studies of deviant subcultures online suggest that individuals turn to the Internet, motivated by desires to connect with others away from friends and family (Maratea and Kavanaugh, 2012; see also Jewkes and Sharp, 2003;Trautner and Collett, 2010;Wood and Ward, 2010). For individuals engaged in deviant lifestyles, the Internet is thus a tool to be harnessed, and there is a suggested, causal link between realized or desired deviance in real life and Internet adoption and use.…”