AMANDA HYNAN FINAL THESIS PDF

eveal more about themselves to other people. Another aspect of a Facebook identity
is the ability it offered the participants to show their humour, create personal
narratives through representing significant aspects of their lives of which they were
proud and using the timeline for creating an historical framework. As illustrated in the
literature review (section 2.2.7) by Waller (2006), this is an area of difficulty for those
who use AAC as intervention has largely focused on transactional rather than
interactional communication which tends to be more complex and adhere to strict
conversational conventions. Waller discusses the importance of interactional
conversation for people as it allows them to share life narratives and develop a
personal identity suggesting people who use AAC are at a disadvantage in this regard.
She cites her previous research (Waller, 1992) that showed many people who use
AAC rely on close communication partners to tell stories on their behalf once they
have indicated a topic area.
These findings also support the research of Goffman (1959) and Zhao et al. (2008)
discussed within the literature review. Participants discussed enjoying putting things
on Facebook of which they were proud which supports ideas outlined by Goffman
(1959) that individuals create a performance which they hope observers will take
seriously. Zhao et al. (2008) also suggested Facebook users liked to control what they
showed others to promote their ‘hoped for’ self which they suggest enhances a
person’s self-image in order to have concrete consequences within the offline world.
Within the data of the current study, there was also mention of the sense of equality
from being able to express yourself in the same way as peers. Bowker and Tuffin
(2002) found online benefits for people with disabilities in areas such as choice over
self-representation. Clarke et al. (2001) spoke about the importance of communication
technology to support participant perceptions of being able to say what they liked and
tell jokes. Within this study participants described feeling they could use online social
media to give voice to their opinions, follow interests and some said they felt other
people could understand them better in writing. As outlined within the literature
review face-to-face conversations introduce considerable time pressure for people
who use AAC. Being able to use social media tools (such as email) can support
communication and also offer an opportunity for a particular conversation to be
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