#ActuallyAutistic: Using Twitter to Construct Individual and Collective Identity Narratives
This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.
About the autistic author markerEgner, J. (2022). #ActuallyAutistic: Using Twitter to Construct Individual and Collective Identity Narratives. Studies in Social Justice, 16(2), 349-369. https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v16i2.2675
Publication date:
11 Mar 2022
Added to AutiHub: 21 Oct 2026
Type:
Article
Article language: English
This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:
Authors
Publication authors
1
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 1 (100.0%)
Abstract
Employing Critical Autism Studies and Narrative Analysis, this project examines how autistic Twitter users engage in narrative meaning-making through social media. By analyzing the hashtags #ActuallyAutistic and #AskingAutistics this project broadly explores how individuals construct identity when lacking access to positive representations and identity communities. Answering the research question, “How do autistic people construct individual and collective identity narratives through Twitter?,” findings indicate that autistic Twitter users use their social media presence to build virtual learning communities. Common knowledge about autism is often oversimplified and highly medicalized. Therefore, autistics use Twitter to make meaning of their experiences that are not represented within cultural notions of what it means to be autistic. Autistic Twitter users reject medicalized narratives by contesting stereotypes, flipping negative narratives into positive stories, re-inscribing “deficiencies” as beneficial, and resisting rehabilitation and “cure.” Users do important social activist work by building strong autistic communities in ways that counter current negative representation, constructing positive self-affirming individual and community identities and resisting eugenic notions that autistic people are “less valuable.”
Bibliography cited by this reference
Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.
Cited bibliography overview
These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 23 Oct 2026 01:01.
Cited references
60
- With a DOI
- 55
- Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
- 0
12 / 60 (20.0%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
1 / 60 (1.7%)
- References with detected author names
- 59 / 60 (98.3%)
- Without detected author names
- 1
- Without a structured title
- 0
- Without a stable identifier
- 0
- References with raw author names still to review
- 0
- References with external metadata lookup issues
- 1
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
114
- From DOI or external metadata
- 114
- From validated raw bibliography text
- 0
- Raw names already validated
- 0
- Raw names still to review
- 0
43 / 114 (37.7%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 71 / 114 (62.3%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
18 / 114 (15.8%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 18 / 43 (41.9%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 12 / 102 (11.8%).
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