Project description (NetCare):

By exploring online mental health support in Finland, the project produces novel knowledge on how technology provides care. The project widens the scope of feminist research on digital intimacies to online mental healthcare, opening up a novel field of research. It simultaneously examines mental vulnerabilities and digital vulnerabilities, analysing how vulnerabilities align with e.g. gender, sexuality, class, age and ethnicity, but it also consideres new digital divides and their impact on mental healthcare. The data comprises interviews, online discussion threads, promotional materials and newspaper artices, and tools provided by both conventional textual analysis and by new materialist inquiry will be used as analysis methods.The site of the project is the University of Turku, and the research team comprises the PI and two postdoctoral researchers. The results will be useful in improving mental health care, and the project contributes to sustainable mental health policy.