‘Feel like going crazy’: Mental health discourses in an online support group for mothers during COVID-19

Abstract

COVID-19 has become a mental health pandemic. The impact on vulnerable demographic groups has been particularly severe. This paper focuses on women in employment in Hong Kong who have had to balance remote work and online schooling for over 2 years. Using semi-ethnography and theme-oriented discourse analysis, we examine 200 threads that concern members’ mental health on a popular Facebook support group for mothers. We demonstrate that mental health messages are typically framed as ‘troubles talk’. Other support group members actively align with a trouble-teller through ‘caring responses’, namely expressions of empathy and sympathy. These are realized through assessments of the trouble-teller’s experience, reports of similar experiences; expressions of compassion and advice-giving. Mental health talk online is heavily mitigated, nevertheless the medium provides a space for expressing mental health troubles and providing informal psychosocial support. We advocate the importance of microanalytic discourse studies for mental health research to get insights into people’s lived experiences during the pandemic.

The Discursive Construction of ‘Good Parenting’ by Romanian Parenting Influencers

“…The proverbial 'village' that used to help with child upbringing has been replaced or extended by the 'virtual' village. In this context, several practices emerged: mummy blogging or 'sharenting' , the creation of online forums and social media groups where peer support is offered, and parenting information is shared (Bîrã, Buzoianu & Tudorie, 2020;Bailey 2023;Zayts-Spence, Tse, & Fortune, 2023), or the emergence of parenting expert influencers who promote parental education programs or books online, through social media.…”