Shades of digital deception: Self-presentation among men seeking men on locative dating apps.

In recent years, location-based real-time dating apps like Grindr and Tinder have assumed an increasingly pivotal role in brokering socio-sexual relations between men seeking men and have proven to be fertile ground for the study of identity negotiation and impression management. However, current research has given insufficient consideration to how various contextual elements of technology use interact with one another to shape self-presentation behaviour. Through analysis of interview data, we found impression construction on these apps reflects tensions between authentic depiction of the self-concept and self-enhancement via deception. Whether and the extent to which one engages in deception depends on how a number of technological affordances, platform-specific community norms and userbase characteristics interact with each other. Self-presentational choices were a result of a combination of deception facilitators, for example, belief in the normalcy of lying, and constraining determinants, for example, the expectation of brokering physical connection. Impression construction determinants also interact in ways where the influence of any one element is dependent on others. This was most plainly evidenced in the interactions between stigma management concerns, the affordances of audience visibility/control and locatability and common ground reinforcing social hierarchy.

Building community, one swipe at a time: hook-up apps and the production of intimate publics between women.

Hook-up apps are an increasingly popular way for women to meet other people for sex, dating, relationships, and more. As a mundane and habitual form of media, the multiple uses of hook-up apps allow for the production of intimacy in surprising and complex ways. This paper draws on narrative interviews with 15 self-identifying women to explore how dating and hook-up apps help produce 'intimate publics' for women. The field of intimate publics available to women users of hook-up apps is broader than those afforded by in-app interactions; there is an entire network of intimacy, sociality, and publicity that forms around hook-up apps. Our findings show that while both queer and straight women use hook-up apps to find sex, hook-ups, dates, and relationships, they are also central to building community, friendship, and sociality between women.

"It's complicated": collective memories of transgender, queer, and questioning youth in high school.

Using the qualitative participatory action methodology, collective memory work, this study explored how transgender, queer, and questioning (TQQ) youth make meaning of their sexual orientation and gender identity through high school experiences. Researchers identified three major conceptual but overlapping themes from the data generated in the transgender, queer, and questioning youth focus group: a need for resilience, you should be able to be safe, and this is what action looks like! The researchers discuss how as a research product, a documentary can effectively "capture voices" of participants, making research accessible and attractive to parents, practitioners, policy makers, and participants.