Online Support for Diabetes Sufferers in the Paula Deen Case

The next speaker at AoIR 2012 is Emilie Lucchesi, whose focus is on a controversy around southern US style TV chef Paula Deen. Deen announced in January that she had diabetes, and will be a spokesperson for a diabetic drug. Even while she knew about her condition she continued to cook very butter-heavy cuisine, however. (More than 100 million Americans now have diabetes or are prediabetic.)

Deen's announcements were followed by a barrage of critical, mocking online content – photoshopped images of Deen which criticised her for her food and unhealthy lifestyle. Deen herself slimmed down quickly and better manages her health now, but this is much more difficult for the vast majority of diabetes sufferers in the US; in fact, the criticism of Deen may well add to the stigma experienced by diabetes sufferers.

Such stigmata may be associated with mental, tribal (e.g. ethnic or religious), or physical factors – for obese people and diabetes sufferers, such stigmata are mainly likely to be related to physical and mental factors. Stigma communication tends to mark a group (as threatening) and to assign responsibility for their stigma to the group itself. The Deen case opened up a new space in the media for the stigmatisation of diabetes sufferers.

Online environments can provide a supporting environment for stigmatised people, especially if no offline support is available. The American Diabetes Association Website provides such a social network for diabetes sufferers, for example, and Elycia examined the uses of this network in the context of the Deen case.

50 users in 12 threads discussed the Deen case during one month at its height, mainly by pointing to mainstream media coverage. Some 48% of responses provided emotional support to the original poster, while 25% added information in the form of new links, and 27% made negative comments. Sentiment towards Deen was mixed: 54% were negative, while others were more positive. Some 20% of posts were involved in arguments, largely about southern cuisine. Finally, some 69% of messages supporting other posters were simultaneously anti-Deen, and/or validated negative comments about Deen.

Conversations about stigma and frustration were overtaken by fighting, in the end; indeed, a thread about which US state was he fattest had to be shut down. There is an interesting link between negativity (against third parties) and supporting behaviour (towards group members) here.