Full length article Temptations of fluency and dilemmas of self definition: Stutterers' usage and avoidance of new media technologies Hananel Rosenberg a, b, * , Ayelet Kohn c a Department of Communication, Ariel University, Israel b Department of Communication, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel c The Department of Communications, David Yellin Academic College of Education, Jerusalem, Israel article info Article history: Received 9 September 2015 Received in revised form 22 March 2016 Accepted 1 April 2016 Keywords: Forums New media Social media avoidance Technology use Mobile phones Verbal fluency disorders abstract Media technologies, such as telephones, often challenge stammers. Other media, especially applications such as SMS and social networks, enable stammers to express themselves fluently. This study looks into the multifaceted meanings of the encounter between stammers and new media, focusing on applications which enable speech through writing, and a Stammers forum website, as a site for reflexive debate on the meaning of new media opportunities. The study focuses on questions such as anonymity, the “noise” of various media and the ways in which new media helps to improve the users quality of life, but at the same time might lead them to reduce their social life to an alternative “verbal ghetto”, confined to the borders of the new media platform. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (hereinafter: “TKS”) 1 brought short-lived pleasure to stutterers, or to use the clinical terminology, those suffering from verbal fluency disorders (hereinafter: “VFDs”). 2 After years of VFD sufferers suffering the further insult of being mocked and portrayed as laughingstocks by Hollywood (Johnson, 2008), the motion picture industry presented a “royal narrative” of stuttering in King George VI's struggle with a lifelong speech impediment that he could no longer hide in the royal palace due to the rise of a new mass medium d radio d that required him to speak clearly and fluently. Communication technologies occasionally present challenges and difficulties to stutterers that are amplified during use, depending upon each medium's unique character (James, Brumfitt, & Cudd, 1999). At the same time, some communication technologies, particularly the range of applications in the new media, constitute an opportunity for “stutter bypass”, and a new type of fluency, for those for whom fluency constitutes a constant obstacle to self-expression. In this study, we present the varied implications of the encounter between the stutterer and new media, focusing on the various speech and writing applica- tions available, and on the online Israeli Tapúz Stutterers' Forum as a locus of reflexive discourse on this matter and as a test case for these uses. The Stutterers' Forum serves as a fascinating site for reflexive debate on the meaning of new media opportunities. While liber- ating its users from their difficulties to conduct a fluent conversa- tion, it might lead its participants to reduce their social life to an alternative “verbal ghetto”, confined to the borders of the new media platform. This contradiction leads us to characterize the stutterers' forum as a multi-functional site for its participants: as a host of a support group, as a site which enables its users to gain their voice back, as an opportunity to discuss the place of new media in the life of people with impairments on a whole, and as a site of self reflection about stutterers and their relationships with * Corresponding author. Communication and Journalism Department, The He- brew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel. E-mail addresses: hananelro@gmail.com (H. Rosenberg), ayeletkohn@gmail.com (A. Kohn). 1 The King's Speech (2010): T. Hooper (Dir.), I. Caning, E. Sherman, & G. Unwin (Prods.). UK Film Council. 2 The terms “stammer”/“stutter” and “stutterer”, which we shall expand upon later further on, are used herein for ease in reading, and do not reflect a dehu- manization or rejection of the subjects of this study. In parallel, the choice to use these terms actually demonstrates the daily encounter with image-based diffi- culties that VFD sufferers face every time they open their mouths. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.04.008 0747-5632/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Computers in Human Behavior 62 (2016) 536e544