Smartphone apps as cosituated closets

A lesbian app, public/private spaces, mobile intimacy, and collapsing contexts

Bibliographic Data

ID13012153
AuthorsChristine Hiu Ying Choy (0000-0002-5176-8728, Chinese University of Hong Kong, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume6
Issue1
Pages88-107
Publication date2017-09-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMobile Media & Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2050-1579 • E-ISSN: 2050-1587
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/2050157917727803
OpenAlexW2756832097
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited40

How does mobile media redefine public/private spaces, intimate relationships, communicative possibilities, and collapsing contexts (Boyd, 2010; Fortunati, 2002; Hjorth & Khoo, 2015; Lasén & Casado, 2012)? Using a case study of Hong Kong lesbian app Butterfly, I explicate how and why users cosituate on and off the app within their context. By analyzing digital ethnography and offline interviews data, I argue that Butterfly provides a mobile communication infrastructure for users to meet their lesbian needs and desires of (in)visible self, relationships, and community. The spatiality and mobility of the app enable users to cosituate in (a) the online and offline public and private spaces, (b) the disclosure and concealment of lesbian identities, and (c) the individual lesbian fantasies and sociocultural, political, and religious contexts. However, users’ cosituation as tactical resistance to the heteronormative context does not come without a cost

Context (archaeology · Internet privacy · Lesbian · Online and offline · Political science · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Anthropology · Computer Science · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Sex work and related issues · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology