Writing Across Layers of Precarity: Professionals’ Digital Social Media Labor in Mental Health Advocacy

Abstract

This dissertation examines how professionals’ routine social media and advocacy writing work is performed as digital labor within a national mental health nonprofit organization. As a conceptual focus, digital labor asks how types of work, such as social media writing, are ascribed value by workers and by the organizations they work for. Within the field of technical and professional communication (TPC), scholars have explored how social media facilitate workplace writing, and how individuals use digital technologies to advocate for the experiences of those with mental illness. Consisting of two case studies, this dissertation seeks to bridge these areas of focus by exploring how four social media professionals engage in the digital labor of creating mental health advocacy content for two state affiliate organizations of a mental health nonprofit. Through a modified grounded theory qualitative analysis, this study emphasizes how professionals’ social media and advocacy writing labor involved navigating different layers of precarity; professionals faced unique challenges as they were working within a nonprofit environment, as they communicated about mental health advocacy, and as they were using social media platforms to do so. Additionally, within these layers of precarity, social media professionals balanced different dimensions of advocacy, sought out social media tactics to support organizational strategies, and thoughtfully communicated to connect, disconnect, and express care. In considering the field of TPC, this project suggests that precarity can be a useful lens for studying digital, social TPC labor, or teaching TPC courses, because it can highlight how individuals perform the work of communicating against injustices or oppression.