Coming-Out: Gay Males' Information Seeking

Abstract

This inquiry, undertaken in New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States examines information-seeking of young gay males about coming-out, taking a social constructionist perspective on gay identity. The investigation uses data collected from critical incident technique interviews in which these young men related their information needs, information-seeking activities, and the conditions of these activities. Findings show that they typically encountered three types of information needs; these are linked to self-labeling, consequences for self-identifying as gay, and forming an understanding of a gay identity. Participants' information-seeking typically involved interacting with young gay adults through online forums. However, they also experienced a period when they did not pursue their information needs about coming-out. Conditions most strongly characterizing information-seeking were the experience of fear and the concealment of information-seeking activities. These findings are considered in association with Chatman's (1996) Theory of Information Poverty. The discussion of the findings also proposes directions for future research and provision of information.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 70 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.