This blog post highlights the benefits of participating on social media, including finding social connections and developing a sense of…
– a young autistic person, Bagatell 2007
How can interest-driven social media sites help us understand different communication styles and preferences?
Autism in Affinity Spaces is a project exploring how autistic young people participate in online spaces where members connect over shared interests, and how advances in digital communication research can shed light on their unique communication styles, and the formation and maintenance of social relationships in these groups.
We want to make existing interest-driven spaces more inclusive of autistic needs and communicative preferences, and show how to foster environments where everyone can interact on topics related to their interests.
Around 2% of UK secondary school students are autistic, and many face challenges during transition to adulthood. But most research has focused on younger children, leaving a gap in understanding how to support young people when they leave school.
Engagement with social media spaces is well documented, but previous research has focused on the effects on social networks rather than exploring interest-driven communication. Online networks have both positive and negative effects, and understanding how these are used for interest-driven interaction is a significant gap in our knowledge.
Autistic young people are often drawn to online platforms to connect over shared interests, such as art or comics. These interest-based spaces, called ‘affinity spaces,’ are a valuable opportunity for understanding social interactions outside of school.
‘Special’ or ‘focused’ interests are a common feature of autism. While everyone has hobbies and interests, autistic interests tend to be more specific, long-lasting, and intense, and very important for identity and wellbeing. Many autistic people find conversation more enjoyable if it is about a specific area of interest, and online instead of face-to-face.
Studying how communication evolves in these affinity spaces can improve our understanding of autistic communication preferences and strengths, and show how to make these spaces more inclusive and supportive.
“…right from the start, from the time someone came up with the word ‘autism’, the condition has been judged from the outside, by its appearances, and not from the inside according to how it is experienced.” – Donna Williams, 1996
A lot of autism research has taken a ‘deficit’ perspective – natural or preferred ways of communicating are judged as deficient, and barriers to communication are assumed to be the result of failing to communicate in the ‘right’ way. This approach means interventions often aim at changing behaviour to meet non-autistic norms and preferences.
In contrast, this project takes a neurodiversity-affirmative perspective: everyone has different ways of communicating, processing information, and understanding the world around them, but there is no single ‘best’ or ‘correct’ way of doing so. Autistic communication has its own preferences and strengths, and these need to be understood and accommodated, not judged.
This blog post highlights the benefits of participating on social media, including finding social connections and developing a sense of…
In this blog post, we will give some more information about our survey.
In this blog post, we will tell you about our second meeting with our steering group.
In this blog post, we will talk about our first meeting with our steering group
This blog post will introduce the first steps in our project which started in July 2023.
The transition to adulthood can make young people vulnerable, and joining groups related to their interests can provide important support. So far, research has mainly focused on face to-face settings, and on facilitating conversational skills preferred by non-autistic participants (such as prolonged eye contact).
By contrast, we argue that we need to:
A 2016 report by Autistica identified communication and supportive environments as top priorities for autism research. Using approaches from digital multimodal linguistics, this project aims to create new pathways for understanding autistic communication online.
This understanding can be used to improve online experiences, and provide guidance on how social media platforms can better accommodate diverse sensory needs and communication preferences.
This project employs participatory research methods, and includes autistic research partners, advisors and collaborators at all stages. This approach recognises and values lived experiences and, as a result, produces high quality research that better reflects the priorities of autistic communities.
© Queen Mary University of London | Created by: Smith & Brown
