Privacy Management as Unfinished Business: Shifting Boundaries in the Context of Infertility

Abstract

Privacy dilemmas are prevalent for women who experience a fertility problem. In this study, we use communication privacy management (CPM) theory to explore how privacy boundaries shift over time as women cope with infertility. Based on interviews with 23 women, we found that women described distinctive patterns of shifting privacy boundaries, including situations in which the experience of infertility served as a change agent, patterns in which women became more or less open over time, and patterns that indicated a continuous oscillation of boundaries.These ever-changing patterns of talk indicate that managing private information about infertility is unfinished business. The management of private information has been a topic of perennial interest to scholars in communication and related disciplines, and work by Altman and Taylor (1973), Petronio (1991, and others has sparked a wealth of scholarship in this area. Yet, despite calls for scholars to expand their theoretical and methodological approaches for understanding privacy management (e.g., Baxter and Sahlstein, 2000), much of the research examining disclosure, secrecy, and topic avoidance, treats privacy management processes as singular events rather than complicated, ever-emerging endeavors. Afifi, Caughlin, and Afifi (2007) noted that scholars too frequently define and discuss these communicative acts in dualistic terms by treating phenomena like disclosure and topic avoidance as two discrete categories in a bivariate construct. Such oversimplification does not, however, capture the full range of options when it comes to privacy management. Indeed, the complex process of managing private information, of deciding whether and how to disclose or avoid disclosing, of engaging in ongoing conversations, is too often reduced to a singular event.However, communication scholars are beginning to give greater attention to the ways that privacy management processes like disclosure, topic avoidance, secret keeping, and secret revelation unfold (e.g., Afifi & Steuber, 2009;Caughlin et al., 2008; Petronio & OstromBlonigen, 2008 ). We wish to contribute to the ongoing scholarly conversations about the emergent nature of privacy management and advance popular theory by bringing the temporal nature of privacy management to the forefront of scholarly inquiry. More specifically, our investigation conceptualizes privacy management as an ongoing, ever-changing process rather than any one singular event marked by precise end points. Conceptualizing privacy management as a process not only advances current theoretical understandings, it also has implications for individuals who are coping with life stressors that change and develop over time (e.g., chronic health conditions, divorce, financial crises). The experience of infertility is an example of one such stressor and provides a useful context for the present study. Women and couples who confront the challenges of a fertility problem have reported that infertility is a "transformational process" (Gonzalez, 2000, p. 619)...

“Taking Good Care of Our Health”: Parent-Adolescent Perceptions of Boundary Management About Health Information

“…We also found support for Bute and Vik's (2010) claim that the experience of a health problem, such as infertility, can be a catalyst for shifting privacy boundaries. At times, the decision to open this boundary was catalyzed by a need for social support.…”

Dancing Around Infertility: The Use of Metaphors in a Complex Medical Situation

“…This study acknowledges the ongoing difficult decisions individuals make in disclosing and discussing their infertility (Bute & Vik, 2010). Like previous studies, this study found that part of their responses depended upon the meaning assigned to the other person's questions or comments (Bute, 2009).…”

Co-ownership of Private Information in the Miscarriage Context

“…Yet, these time-oriented markers seemed to give couples one concrete criterion for privacy rule development in the midst of a chaotic and unpredictable situation. By highlighting the way that privacy management shifts over time (Bute & Vik, 2010) and drawing attention to the role of temporality, this study contributes to continuing scholarly conversations that frame privacy management as an ongoing, ever-shifting process rather than a one-time event (e.g., Caughlin et al, 2009).…”

“…In-depth interviews are an appropriate method for studying privacy management, especially when practical and ethical considerations impede direct observation or recording of naturally occurring conversations (Bute & Vik, 2010). Moreover, participants can benefit from catharsis during the interview.…”