TransForm: Body Image

The interdisciplinary “TransForm” project ran between 2012 and 2014 and aimed to explore how reading and writing digital fictions (DFs, a.k.a. IDNs) might support young women in developing frameworks for more positive thinking regarding their body image. TransForm explored IDNs as bibliotherapy (reading for therapeutic effects) and expressive writing (writing for therapeutic effects) tools in several focus groups of young people.

The TransForm project consisted of three stages: (1) contextual analysis of existing IDNs for their applicability as bibliotherapy, (2) a focus group of young women reading and discussing these IDNs regarding body image, and (3) a focus group of young people reading and writing their own IDNs as expressive writing to address their body image issues.

A full report on the approaches and outcomes of this project was published in Digital Creativity in 2016.

The lead investigator for TransForm, Prof. Astrid Ensslin, continues to lead follow-on research activities in her Writing New Bodies project.