Temptations of fluency and dilemmas of self definition: Stutterers' usage and avoidance of new media technologies

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.