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Purpose – To present detailed examples of the social construction of understandings, exploring interplay between social and individual sense making.

Methodology/approach – A form of ethnomethodological discourse analysis is undertaken using text from online discussions groups for people with kidney failure. Sense making is theorised using Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology (1999) as a starting point. Chatman's Theory of Normative Behaviour (2000) and Pettigrew's Information Grounds (1999) are considered for their potential to theorise social impacts on individual understandings, while a practice theoretic approach (Gherardi, 2009a, 2009b) illuminates dynamics between social and individual sense making.

Findings – Local understandings developed out of repetition with gradual modification of ideas. Meanwhile, generic information such as facts was usually contextualised by descriptions of lived experiences. In this way, specifics were emphasised rather than generalities. However, the detailed, non-prescriptive commentaries provided by individuals gathered into usefully loose (non-specific) fields of possibilities.

Research implications – Information and knowledge manifest as transient and customised. This suggests a need for caution if researchers conceive people as having stable ‘knowledge structures’ which can be mapped by research, and it raises questions about durable incarnations of information.

Practical implications – People must produce flexible understandings particular to their situation. This requires time, reiteration and access to contributions from a range of sources. Provision of generic information during one-off interactions is only a first step towards support of these larger needs.

Originality/value of paper – Extends relational conceptions of information and verb-based metaphors for sense making, by proposing sense making, information and knowledge as transient and customised.

To examine the potential for including forums in an online ethnography that draws on data from multiple online sites.

Taking a broadly post-structuralist approach to identity and embodiment online, the research drew on three sources of data: asynchronous email interviews, in-game participant observation and six months of forum observation.

The community in question was socially located around multiple field sites online and forums remain an integral part of the social lives of online gamers. The practice and ethics for examining forums from a qualitative perspective are outlined and how this can fit into an ethnographic account. Some of the data is then presented from this strand of the research to illustrate how researching a forum as a ‘lurker’ can complement theoretical trajectories and analyses from other parts of the dataset.

This research details a novel way of examining forums qualitatively as part of a larger dataset. Furthermore, the chapter posits how relatively unobtrusive methods of observation can bring to the fore the ways in which prejudice still structures online social interaction.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to examine women’s college alumnae’s gender panics surrounding transgender admittance policies and negotiations on how to define the boundaries of the alumnae community in moments of these panics.

Methodology/Approach: I explore these negotiations by conducting a modified grounded theory approach of online discussion threads of one women’s college alumnae Facebook group from 2013 to 2016. These threads (39 threads; 2,812 comments) discuss transgender admissions policies at women’s colleges and the definition of woman more broadly.

Findings: I outline three strategies that define who belongs to a women’s college community in response to peers’ gender panics. First, I discuss the ways in which alumnae “call out hate” and label exclusionary peers as Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFS). Second, I discuss the negotiated boundaries of who is included within the women’s college community. Finally, I focus on the recommended suggestions and expectations for fellow alumnae to be allies toward their trans peers.

Social Implications: These findings imply that feminist boundary negotiation is not only simply based on external threats, but can also be debated among members within the community.

Originality/Value of Study: This study highlights the nuances and strategies of boundary construction in regards to the social category of woman. I propose that researchers expand theorizations of gendered boundary negotiation to consider the ways in which boundaries are drawn not only as a form of panic and exclusion but also as a response to such panics to promote inclusivity and diversity.

Online communities of practice offer the potential for the development of a shared understanding regarding knowledge and skills related to a particular field or practice. Online communities of practice also offer researchers a means to analyze discussions to determine themes related to practices within a given field. This chapter presents two studies that have examined discussions that have occurred among members of a large assistive technology (AT) Listserv. The purpose of the studies was to identify and examine themes grounded in the conversations and experiences of those individuals actively engaged in AT service delivery. Findings are presented and implications of using online communities of practice within research as well as a means for knowledge and skill development are discussed.

This chapter uses critical race theories to interpret Obama-related content and changing discourse patterns on discussion boards maintained by a pro-gun, overwhelmingly white, male, and conservative virtual community. Beginning during the 2008 presidential primary season and continuing through Barack Obama's election as president, our analysis focused on the proliferation of negative “nicknames” (“Obamathets”) that were posted in race-oriented discussion threads over 16 months. We identified three types of frequently voiced Obamathets: those indicating general dislike, political disdain, or racial derision, and we analyzed usage patterns – which types of Obamathets appeared and at which times. Our results revealed a changing state of mind – annoyance to extreme anger – among posters whose sense of racial threat seemed increasingly palpable as Obama approached, and eventually won, the presidency. Over time, posts increasingly included racially derisive terms whose incidence intensified after the election and remained high; racially derisive terms overtook terms of general dislike (that had been more popular) as well as terms of political disdain several months into our analysis. Because posters tended to be more openly libertarian in orientation, we doubt our findings would generalize to the majority of conservative whites; however, our findings probably shed considerable light on activist elements among conservatives, including the “Tea Party” movement. Moreover, capturing sentiments expressed in a semiprivate venue – virtual community discussion boards – probably allowed us to uncover less censored racial sentiment (or racetalk) than is typical when social scientists solicit racial opinions from whites in face-to-face interviews, when many may omit racially hostile thoughts to appear more racially sensitive to researchers.

This chapter presents a Dewey-inspired analysis of the role of dissent in the creative process. We extend and complement received knowledge on the role of positive affect on creativity by discussing the tensions between negative and positive affect. Using a netnography of three online communities, which bring together animators and visual special effect artists, we develop a grounded typology of creative conflict practices. By cross-referencing the creative status with creative objectives, we define four distinct types of creative conflict practices: invoke, evoke, poke, and provoke. Our qualitative findings further show how creatives adeptly manage tensions between positive and negative affects.

In order to understand how specific communities might develop over time, it is important to take into account how the broader phenomenon of online consumer communities is itself situated in a bigger social context. As a whole, online communities can be seen as micro-social groups (Maffesoli, 1996) that exist at the “forgotten” level in consumer research (Bagozzi, 2000). This micro-social level, between individual and macro/cultural levels, is the level at which interactions and communications between people take place (Cova & Cova, 2002).

This chapter describes an application of clean language interviewing to organisational change work through a process we call modelling shared reality (MSR). This process was developed in 2006 by Stefan Outober, James Lawley, Annemiek van Helsdingen, Wendy Nieuwland and Maaike Nooitgedagt (Van Helsdingen & Lawley, 2012). It is based on the clean language & symbolic modelling process (Lawley & Tompkins, 2000). MSR has been applied in a multitude of settings over the last 15 years in the context of organisational change and development, as well as policy decisions and evaluations and other participative processes.

We believe that how people in organisations behave is steered mostly by how they perceive ‘reality’ (Nieuwland & Nooitgedagt, 2018). MSR aims to facilitate movement and change in organisations by enabling participants to explore their individual and collective perceptions of reality.

In this chapter, we describe the principles and steps of the MSR process, highlighting the role of clean language interviewing (CLI). MSR represents a form of action research, the aim of which is to facilitate organisational change rather than to produce abstract knowledge. Illustrated by a case study of a finance department in a social housing corporation, the chapter shows how CLI can be used to work with shared constructs of reality.