“It's not a case of manning up”: Doing 'depression' in an online men's health forum

Kevin Marks & Brendan Gough

Since it is increasingly suggested that mental health services are underutilised by men suffering from depression, there is a growing interest in both their failure to seek help, and their presentation of atypical symptoms.
As contemporary qualitative research in this area often considers 'contrived' interview data from a social constructionist perspective on gender, these phenomena are consequently attributed to men doing 'being masculine'.
Whilst adopting the same ontological position, this study instead considers naturally occurring data from an online men's health forum, and examines how those seeking depression-related support themselves construct categories so as to discursively manage issues of stake, accountability, and entitlement.
This discourse analysis raises questions as to the assumed omni-relevance of gender categories for participants within much 'men's health' research.
Furthermore, in contrast to the commonly presumed low entry-barrier for online support groups, it is evident that help-seekers must delicately balance doing 'being defective' enough to warrant peer-support with doing 'being competent' enough to deserve it.
It is also apparent that a reciprocal relationship between peer and formal support exists, with each acting to overcome the entry-barriers of the other.
Implications for men’s mental health interventions and research are discussed.

"Depressed, stressed, losing the plot?": Doing entitlement and accountability in an online men's mental health forum

Brendan Gough & Kevin Marks

Since it is increasingly suggested that men may be under-diagnosed with common mental health problems, there is a growing interest both in why distressed men might fail to seek formal help, and how they might present with atypical symptoms if they do.

In contrast to much qualitative research in this area, this study considers naturally occurring data, drawn from a number of online forum posts, to examine how help-seekers themselves construct category membership so as to discursively manage issues of stake, accountability, and entitlement.

Our discourse analysis suggests that to obtain online peer-support, help-seekers must perform the delicate interactional task of doing 'being defective' enough to warrant it, whilst at the same time doing 'being competent' enough to deserve it. We also note a complex relationship between peer and formal support, with each acting to overcome the entry-barriers of the other. Implications for men’s mental health promotion are discussed.

"Wimps need not apply!": Constructing gender identity within the video-game development industry

Despite video-game development being widely perceived as glamorous and rewarding, recent online exposés have revealed quality-of-life (QoL) and work-life balance (WLB) issues to be endemic within the industry.
Furthermore, it appears that employees often willingly subject themselves to these extreme working conditions.
Despite the implied desirability of such employment, it is also evident that there is a considerable lack of diversity amongst the workforce, with it almost entirely being comprised of young white men.
Whilst these issues are typically treated as distinct, this presentation considers the reciprocal relationship between them in terms of the social construction of masculine identity.
It is argued that rather than being a necessity, an unhealthy workplace culture exists because the industry is dominated by men, since it provides an alternative resource with which to do 'being masculine' for a marginalised male sub-group (i.e. 'computer geeks') that lacks access to more traditional resources.
Conversely, the industry is attractive to such men as a source of employment because it provides such a resource.
Furthermore, it is suggested that since this resource is consequently valued, and indeed celebrated, by those within the industry, the 'heroic male project' it enables becomes conflated with occupational competence.
Any women employees will therefore not be seen as competent unless they also do 'being masculine', meaning that those that do not wish to sacrifice their 'female' gender identity are likely to self de-select from such a career.
This is in addition to more obvious 'practical' disincentives, for example the conflict between a long-hours culture and a de facto responsibility for child-care.
Such implicit barriers are significant, since they both bypass anti-discrimination legislation, as well as undermining the viability of 'affirmative action' programmes that simply attempt to recruit more women.
In particular, these issues are illustrated by considering the role of magazine recruitment advertisements in propagating a 'male' industry culture through the social construction of video-game developer identity.
Since such advertisements are unusual in comparison with those of more traditional industries, in that they are predominantly visual rather than textual, this necessitates a novel extension to the conventional discursive analysis of identity category membership.

[Poster] "Wimps need not apply!": A visual analysis of video-game developer recruitment advertisements

Doing 'being competent': A visual micro-analysis of video-game developer recruitment advertisements

Objective:
Despite being widely perceived as a glamorous and rewarding career, recent online exposés have revealed widespread quality-of-life issues amongst employees within the video-game development industry. It is also apparent, however, that such employees often willingly subject themselves to these extreme working conditions. Despite the stereotype of the ‘computer geek’ not conforming to the ideals of ‘hegemonic masculinity’, it is suggested that this is an alternate form of doing ‘being masculine’, reflecting the male domination of the industry. Since a ‘technical male’/‘social female’ dichotomy is popularly ‘known’ to exist, it is further suggested that such prevalence doing ‘being masculine’ is a result of conflation with doing ‘being technically competent’. The objective of this study is, therefore, to consider ways in which such ‘common knowledge’ is socially constructed.

Design:
Advertising within specialist magazines is a significant means of recruitment within the video-game development industry, and so this study examines programmer recruitment advertisements drawn from a year long sample of the two most influential magazines within the UK. Unlike other industries, such advertisements contain very little information relating to the actual vacancy, instead being dominated by game-related artwork and visual imagery. In line with the common industry ‘job as war’ metaphor, a visual micro-analysis of the significant subset of advertisements featuring ‘combat themed’ imagery is undertaken, so as to consider how they function in terms of constructing employee identity.

Method:
Since existing visual methodologies do not support the micro-analytic social constructionist perspective of this study, it is necessary to adopt a novel analytic approach. Membership categorisation analysis (MCA) is an existing discursive technique that examines how participants are dynamically positioned as members of particular social categories through the portrayal of category bound activities (CBA). This study, therefore, extends the approach of MCA to consider how visual attributes may also be regarded as category bound, since they often imply the carrying out of particular CBAs. Consequently, it is considered how characters within the advertisements are visually positioned as category members, with particular focus on how conflicting categorisations are resolved so as to protect ‘common knowledge’, and the implications of this for the portrayal of ‘authentic’ category membership.

Results:
It is evident that the advertisements commonly position women as ‘inauthentic’ members of various ‘occupational’ categories, thereby conflating occupational competence with masculinity.

Conclusion:
Since such categories can be seen to metaphorically represent the advertised job, this consequently implies an organisational culture where it is necessary for both men and women to do ‘being masculine’ in order to do ‘being competent’. As well as encouraging a hostile and discriminatory attitude towards existing female employees, this is also likely to cause women to self de-select from potential employment within the industry in the first place. Consequently, such advertising both circumvents employment discrimination legislation, as well as protecting ‘common knowledge’ as to the existence of a male-technical/female-social dichotomy. Furthermore, in encouraging the adoption of unhealthy ‘masculine’ working practices, it is also clearly detrimental to the health and well-being of employees of both sexes.

Doing 'being competent': Membership categorisation within video-game developer recruitment advertisements

Despite bring popularly perceived as a glamorous and rewarding career, recent online exposés have revealed widespread quality-of-life (QoL) issues amongst employees within the video-game development industry. Rather counter-intuitively, however, it is also apparent that employees often willingly subject themselves to such extreme working conditions.

From a social constructionist perspective, it can be seen that the adoption of such risky health behaviours is a way of doing 'being masculine', reflecting the almost total absence of women performing technical job-roles within the industry. The overall research objective is therefore to consider ways in which this industry culture is socially constructed.

Advertising within specialist magazines is a significant means of recruitment within the UK video-game development industry, and so a specific study has been undertaken to examine how such recruitment advertisements contribute to the construction of industry culture.

Unlike other industries, such advertisements contain very little information relating to the actual vacancy, instead being dominated by game-related artwork and visual imagery. Since existing visual methodologies do not support the desired micro-analytic social constructionist perspective of this research, it is therefore necessary to adopt a novel analytic approach.

To this end, it is suggested than the existing discursive technique of membership categorisation analysis (MCA) may be extended from its usual application to transcribed audio-recordings of 'talk-in-interaction', to also consider visual data.

Using MCA to examine the positioning of advertisement characters as members of particular categories thereby enables consideration of the portrayal of 'inauthentic' category membership, and consequently the implications for both employee well-being and equality.

Membership categorisation within video-game developer recruitment advertisements

Over recent years, qualitative research within psychology has become increasing influenced by the 'turn-to-talk', leading to the development of the sub-field of discursive psychology (DP). This typically uses various forms of discourse analysis (DA) to examine transcribed audio recordings of social interactions, so as to consider *how* talk does things.

Membership categorisation analysis (MCA) is one such approach, being used to examine how participants *do* 'being category members' within everyday social interaction. This social constructionist view is in contrast to mainstream psychological perspectives on social categorisation, such as social identity theory (SIT), which instead consider that participants *are* members of such categories.

The predominant focus on 'talk-in-interaction' adopted by MCA, however, means that it largely ignores visual elements within social interaction, despite their demonstrable relevance to identity construction (e.g. Goffman). This presentation will therefore consider how MCA might be extended so as to consider such visual attributes.

In particular it will examine how characters portrayed within magazine recruitment advertisements for video-game developers are positioned as members of specific categories through their appearance. Consequently, it will consider the portrayal of 'phoney' category membership within the advertisements, and the implications that this has for employees within the video-game development industry.

Identity construction amongst video-game developers

Identity construction amongst video-game developers, and its implications for employee health

Despite being widely viewed by the general public as a glamorous and rewarding career, recent online exposés suggest that poor work-life balance is endemic within the video-game development industry. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence suggests that employees themselves are to some degree complicit in the adoption of such working practices, despite putting their own mental and physical health at risk. Whilst traditional psychology might explain this in terms of the 'personality type' of those attracted to the industry, more recent critical approaches propose that such apparent phenomena are something that people 'do' through social interaction, rather than something that they inherently 'have'. My research therefore adopts a social constructionist perspective to examine how people go about doing 'being a video-game developer'. This presentation will discuss the underlying rationale in more detail, and outline some preliminary findings.