Georgina Turner

The road to the lesbian nation is not an easy one: "us" and "them" in Diva magazine

The present paper discusses Diva, Britains only mainstream lesbian magazine. Using critical discourse analysis, the article explores Divas importance to its readers and the pertinence of critical discourse analysis techniques to analysing the magazine. Looking at six consecutive issues, the study focuses on a close textual analysis, backed up by content analysis, of how the groups “us” and “them” are constructed. The paper concludes that the magazines use of these categories in ways that bemoan yet bolster the distance between the two reflects Divas position as the voice of an “oppressed group”.

Giving Meaning to RFID and Cochlear Implants

In this article, we focus on people such as Randall and Edith; people who have either a cochlear implant for hearing improvement or a RFID implant. Both types of implants have caused controversy. The main opposition to CIs comes from the deaf community itself, which with the capital D signifies this minority culture. Deaf people consider themselves a socio-linguistic minority culture with sign language as their language [1]. They argue that CI undervalues the identity of being deaf: there is nothing wrong with being deaf, they are not disabled, and they do not need to be fixed. Controversies about RFID implants are more diverse and come from different groups: they include medical issues [2], [3], worries about physical assault [4], issues with privacy and the security of the collected data [3]-[7], a fear for dehumanization [3], and worries from Christians who consider the tag to be the “Mark of the Beast” as described in the book of Revelation [8].

Taboos and desires of the UK public for identity management in the future: findings from two survey games

In this paper, we analyze user experiences and expectations about the future of identification and authentication (I&A). We focus on structural taboos and desires around I&A and try to tap into fundamental concerns that may be relevant across particular technologies or contexts. We collected data by running two gamified surveys in which a representative sample of the UK public (N=1000) were engaged in I&A narratives that were accompanied by a colorful design, visuals and audio effects. We found that people use a traditional set of I&A instruments, i.e. passport, driving license, bank card, pincodes and passwords. Few of them are heavy users of biometrics. People experience little problems with their current means of I&A and do not like the kind of futuristic means of I&A that are presented in popular culture, arts and design, and some R&D departments of big corporations. If people see room for improvements of their future means of I&A, they tend to desire higher ease and transparency of the cards they use. People hope and expect I&A in the future to become even more personalized; they hope to get more control over their online identities but there is widespread doubt this will become possible; they fear and expect commercialization of I&A services, and expect that surveillance will expand (about which they have mixed feelings). We end the paper with recommendations for further research and for designers of I&A systems.

Opposition as victimhood in newspaper debates about same-sex marriage:

In this article, we take a queer linguistics approach to the analysis of data from British newspaper articles that discuss the introduction of same-sex marriage. Drawing on methods from critical discourse analysis (CDA) and corpus linguistics, we focus on the construction of agency in relation to the government extending marriage to same-sex couples, and those resisting this. We show that opponents to same-sex marriage are represented and represent themselves as victims whose moral values, traditions and civil liberties are being threatened by the state. Specifically, we argue that victimhood is invoked in a way that both enables and permits discourses of implicit homophobia.

Exercising identity: agency and narrative in identity management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the paradox in identity management that sees people happily sharing personal information in some circumstances, such as via social networks, yet defending their right to privacy in others, such as in interactions with the state. The authors examine the predominant explanations and elaborate how these ignore the different types of individual acts and agency involved in identity management. The authors conclude with a proposal to consider alternative, narrative approaches to identity management (IM). Design/methodology/approach – This paper has been developed out of the empirical research examining public responses to new forms of IM, based on, among other things, Delphi interviews with experts, films and television series and survey and focus group data about peoples feelings and attitudes. The authors have combined these data into an approach that theorises rather than reports about public engagements with IM. Findings – Finding any explanation for the pa...