An e-group of mothers and mothers-to-be who use social media and technologies to share their own experiences.
Published in Chapter:
Cyber-Moms Facing Motherhood: Holding Functions and Regressive Movements in Parenting Websites
Valentina Boursier (University of Naples Federico II, Italy), Valentina Manna (Association for Social Promotion Roots in Action, Italy), Francesca Gioia (University of Naples Federico II, Italy), Federica Coppola (University of Naples Federico II, Italy), and Noemi Venosa (University of Naples Federico II, Italy)
Copyright: © 2020
|Pages: 29
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-2351-3.ch004
Abstract
Mothers and mothers-to-be often become e-health users because of their need for sharing emotional and practical parental experiences. In this sense, web forums seem to positively contribute to parenting skills and transition to motherhood. This study aims at exploring how 379 Italian mothers use two Italian forums, the manifest and latent contents of their interactions, and the emotional connections between their own maternal experiences and the e-group dynamics. The qualitative analysis of 7433 comments pointed out five main themes, describing how mothers make sense of their experiences through the online dimension: the group; I am; personal experience; perspective knowhow; tech-moms. This study confirms that parenting experience represents a big challenge for rising mothers. Moreover, it shows that the e-groups can alternatively reproduce a peer group functioning and a feeding breast, a reassuring container with holding functions, or a “toilet breast”, encouraging progressive as well as regressive movements.