[Air-L] research on birth week groups?

[Derek Hansen]

I don't have any publications to point to that I've seen on that topic
(there may be some), but I will give some anecdotal evidence from a
student in my "Communities of Practice" course who has been studying
"The Bump" (http://www.thebump.com/). She has noticed that many of the
groups that form persist for many years after their child is born.
There are companion sites for those with young children. Likewise,
people who met on "The Knot" (a site for those planning weddings)
often retain connections. The Knot seems to attract fairly high income
women that are probably quite similar on many socio-economic metrics.
I'm not sure how much that is true of The Bump.

Derek Hansen
Assistant Professor
Maryland's iSchool

On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 9:59 AM, danah boyd <aoir.z3z at danah.org> wrote:
> A friend of mine is trying to find research on women who are part of "birth
> week" groups.  I've heard a lot about these forming through Craigslist, but
> I don't know who is doing research in this space.  Does anyone here know?
>  I've included his full query below.  --danah
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: Ethan Zuckerman <ethanz at gmail.com>
>>
>> In the past few (several?) years, online support groups have emerged for
>> women who share a pregnancy due date. Some of these clubs are regional;
>> others are nationwide or worldwide, usually constrained by language. Women
>> participate because it's helpful to compare their experiences to women at
>> the same stage of gestational development.
>>
>> What's interesting to me about these groups is that they encourage connect
>> - sometimes deep emotional connection - between women who don't share much
>> in common in demograhic/psychograhic terms. These groups are limited by
>> gender, age and basic computer literacy, but they appear to be - if only
>> from anecdotes - more diverse than many voluntary online associations.
>>
>> I'm interested in whether anyone has done either a detailed ethnographic
>> or a quantitative, survey-based study of one or more of these communities.
>> I'm especially interested in observations on support relationships
>> developing between women who differ in terms of income, race and religion.
>>
>> -E
>
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