Online Personal Narratives

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to explore personal narratives and conversational stories of self-declared victims of abuse in the comments section of a knowledge-sharing platform, such as YouTube. The aim is to analyze the resemblance between the interaction and exchange of narratives in comments sections, on the one hand, and narrative group psychotherapy and self-help support groups, on the other. While previous research on storytelling mostly addresses professionally guided or produced narratives, this approach extends the production of these narratives to online communicative contexts. Firstly, the chapter looks at the theoretical tenets of storytelling. Secondly, a sociolinguistic, narratology-oriented approach is used to exemplify this practice. This part of the chapter discusses how the interaction among commentators and the exchange of personal narratives meet the core principles of self-help support groups and group psychotherapy.