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An Ethnographic Analysis Of Adolescent Sexual Minority Website Usage: Exploring Notions Of Information Seeking And Sexual Identity Development, Rocky M. Sulfridge
An Ethnographic Analysis Of Adolescent Sexual Minority Website Usage: Exploring Notions Of Information Seeking And Sexual Identity Development, Rocky M. Sulfridge
Wayne State University Dissertations
This dissertation explores the website usage of adolescent sexual minorities, examining notions of information seeking and sexual identity development. Sexual information seeking is an important element within human information behavior and is uniquely problematic for young sexual minorities. Utilizing a contemporary gay teen website, this five-year virtual ethnography of GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) youth demonstrates an understanding of the function of the Internet as an invaluable tool for exploring social and psychological needs while providing anonymity and keeping information-seeking behavior relatively unknown. The use of Chatman's (1996) Information Impoverished Theory and Cass's (1979) Model of Gay and Lesbian Identity …