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This version was published on April 1, 2008
Qualitative Health Research, Vol. 18, No. 4, 509-521 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1049732307311680

"We Are Here to Give You Emotional Support": Performing Emotions in an Online HIV/AIDS Support Group

Shirly Bar-Lev

Ruppin Academic Center, Emek Hefer, Israel, barlevsh{at}ruppin.ac.il

Since the advent of the Internet, social critics have debated its effects on intimacy and social relationships. I show how, by writing detailed descriptions of their illness experiences, participants in online support groups create emotionally vibrant, empathic communities in which emotional rhetoric frames various moral dilemmas. I illustrate my argument with a detailed analysis of "emotion talk" among members of an HIV/AIDS support group over a 2-year period. My findings add to current debates by encouraging sociologists to consider the emotional dynamics within the online support group as a moral, rather than just psychological or therapeutic, component of interaction.

Key Words: empathy • Internet • HIV/AIDS • support group • emotions • anger • narrative methods


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