[Commlist] Digital Mental Health Symposium

Digital Mental Health Symposium Dec 3-4 - Hybrid keynote talks by 
Professor Adrienne Evans and Professor Katrin Tiidenberg

Keynote 1:
Time: Tuesday December 3rd, 10.15-11.45 EET
Venue: Aava lecture hall at the University of Turku (Arcanum, 
Arcanuminkuja 1, 20500 Turku)
Livestream: https://bit.ly/48scfgG

*Adrienne Evans:*
*
*Good vibes, positive mindsets, and intimate therapeutics:*
*Gendering structures of feeling in digital culture*
*

Abstract:
There is an urgent need to address mental and emotional health, 
wellbeing, digital culture, and our relationship with technology in the 
twenty-first century. Capturing the ambiance of our contemporary moment, 
elements of digital culture are described as having ‘all the feels’, a 
state and online vernacular to describe feeling emotionally overwhelmed. 
However, this feeling is also ambivalent, marked by the inseparability 
of, on the one hand, a sense of hostility and toxicity, and on the 
other, an imperative to share ‘good vibes’, develop ‘positive mindsets’, 
and ‘be kind’. Such ambivalence is deeply gendered, where positivity is 
culturally and historically associated with femininity. Meanwhile, 
digital platforms have become part of the solution to higher numbers of 
people reporting emotional distress, redirecting the need for self-help, 
self-care, therapy, validation, and wellbeing back to the same devices 
(and, occasionally, the same platforms) that are reportedly causing 
suffering.

In this talk, I will outline a theoretical framework for making sense of 
digital positivity cultures, drawing together analysis of positivity 
where the “positivation of the world allows new forms of violence to 
emerge” (Han, 2015, p.6), with the cultural condition of permacrisis and 
its implicit gendered consequences. In the latter, I rely on critical 
feminist analysis of analogous and interwoven ‘good feelings’ of 
confidence and body positivity (Orgad & Gill 2022), relatability (Kanai, 
2018), the triad of perfect-imperfect-resilience (McRobbie 2020), and 
happiness (Ahmed 2010). I evidence the usefulness of this way of making 
sense of positivity by drawing examples from the ‘-nesses’, namely 
wellness, cuteness, and kindness. In doing so, the talk will make moves 
towards defining feminist wellness, radical self-care, and critical 
kindness, as concepts that demonstrate more hopeful futures and 
practices of care, that could remake an emotional landscape and 
structure of feeling in ways that are less cruel.

/Bio: Adrienne Evans is Professor of Gender and Culture in the Centre 
for Postdigital Cultures. Her research focuses on accounts of intimacy, 
and she is interested in creating new ways of thinking about notions of 
the good life, wellbeing and positivity through digital technology in 
relation to the vulnerabilities these concepts engender, by seeking to 
stimulate more inclusive, equitable and feminist-inspired ways of 
being-in-the-world. She is co-author of Technologies of Sexiness (2014), 
Postfeminism and Health (2018) and Postfeminism and Body Image (2022), 
and Digital Feeling (2023). She co-founded the AHRC network Postdigital 
Intimacies and the Networked Public-Private, and co-editor of the 
forthcoming collection of the same name./


Keynote 2:
Time: Wednesday December 4th, 10.15-11.45 EET
Venue: Aava lecture hall at the University of Turku (Arcanum, 
Arcanuminkuja 1, 20500 Turku)
Livestream: https://bit.ly/48scfgG

*Katrin Tiidenberg:*
*
*Authentic suffering, relatable struggle: mental health on and with 
social media*
*
Abstract:
Mental health discourse is increasingly pervasive on social media. There 
are content creators who focus entirely on the topic (e.g. stress, 
anxiety, depression, ADHD, autism), but referring to personal mental 
health struggles is also common in the content of creators whose focus 
lies elsewhere (e.g. fitness, study advice, productivity advice, beauty, 
finance). This serves to destigmatize mental ill health and normalize 
talking about it. However, research has shown that references to one’s 
mental health struggles also generate a sense of relatability and 
authenticity among audiences, thus adding to the trustworthiness of 
content creators and serving them well within the densely populated 
attention economy of social media. In response, audiences grow 
increasingly suspicious of creator’s motivations when sharing mental 
health information. In this talk I will examine how trust is constructed 
through social markers of authenticity—such as vulnerability and 
transparency—and technical-visual cues that support believability. I 
will introduce a conceptual framework of social media authenticity as a 
resource and a genre from a forthcoming book, analyze the paradox of 
prominence (e.g. the tensions between attention and authenticity) in the 
case of socially mediated mental health discourse, and ask how this 
discourse shapes and constrains our understanding of mental ill-health 
and mental well-being.

/Bio: Katrin Tiidenberg is Professor of Participatory Culture at the 
Baltic Film, Media and Arts School of Tallinn University, Estonia and 
the author of multiple books on social media, digital visual cultures 
and digital research methods, most recently “Tumblr” (2021, co-authored 
by Natalie Ann Hendry and Crystal Abidin). She is currently lead of an 
international research project on visual digital trust (TRAVIS) and 
leading the Participatory Wellbeing Research Group of the recently 
launched Estonian Centre of Excellence of Wellbeing Sciences (ESTWELL). 
Her research interests span digital cultures, networked visuality, 
internet governance and self-care. More info at: 
https://katrin-tiidenberg.com/ <https://katrin-tiidenberg.com/>/
///
/
More info about the symposium: 
https://www.dataintimacy.fi/en/event/digital-mental-health-a-symposium/

Contact: Laura Antola ((lahean /at/ utu.fi))


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