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The postings made to Internet forums by relatives and friends of people with breast and prostate cancer are described. Women post very frequently on the prostate cancer forum and assume a communication style that is similar to women elsewhere, prioritizing emotional forms of communication over the informational forms preferred by men and showing only mild signs of accommodation to a male style. Men on the breast cancer forum are in a minority and are often responding to the current or anticipated loss of a partner. Their communication behaviour is radically different from that required by dominant conceptions of masculinity. They prioritize emotional communication and the emotional welfare of family members. They experience this new form of communication as unsettling to their conceptions of traditional masculinity. Internet cancer support groups thus favour a form and content of communication generally associated with women's culture.

Distinctions between traditional scholarship and methodologically informed procedures can support unhelpful stereotypes which parallel that between qualitative and quantitative research. These can have a negative effect on the practice of social research in general, and textual analysis in particular. Drawing on a study of morally charged narratives of collective and personal identity in newspaper texts reporting cancer experiences, where gender politics are negotiated, I show how this distinction can be overcome in research practice. Quantitative analysis is shown to be useful in exploring text and generating insights, as well as strengthening generalisations from qualitative anecdotes. Automated text analysis using NVIVO and Concordance software can produce new "readings" otherwise hidden from view that can be followed up in close qualitative analysis. Thus traditional views of qualitative research as exploratory and quantitative as confirmatory can be overturned. Analysts of discourse can use automation and counting without compromising their capacity to think creatively about meaning.

Distinctions between traditional scholarship & methodologically informed procedures can support unhelpful stereotypes that parallel those between qualitative & quantitative research. These can have a negative effect on the practice of social research in general, & textual analysis in particular. Drawing on a study of morally charged narratives of collective & personal identity in newspaper texts reporting cancer experiences where gender politics are negotiated, I show how this distinction can be overcome in research practice. Quantitative analysis is shown to be useful in exploring text & generating insights, as well as strengthening generalizations from qualitative anecdotes. Automated text analysis using NVIVO & Concordance software can produce new "readings" otherwise hidden from view, which can be followed up in close qualitative analysis. Thus, traditional views of qualitative research as exploratory & quantitative as confirmatory can be overturned. Analysts of discourse can use automation & counting without compromising their capacity to think creatively about meaning. 2 Tables, 4 Figures, 36 References. Adapted from the source document.

Media portrayals of women with cancer emphasize women's emotionality in the face of life-threatening disease. For some sociological commentators, this weakens women in an exercise of patriarchal control by medicine and the media. The present study, of news reports of people with cancer in the media of several anglophone countries, compares portrayals of men and women. Media representations of the emotions of people with cancer are found to emphasize women's skills in the emotional labour of self-transformation, something which is particularly prevalent in reports of breast cancer activism. In men, cancer is more commonly portrayed as a test of pre-existing character. Both sexes, in these representations, are offered paths to the common goal of a self-willed victory over cancer and the limitations of the body. This media-orchestrated fantasy about human powers resonates with broader analyses of heroic projects of self-identity in late modernity, in which women's advertised expertise in the management of emotions plays an important part. The imagined superpowers of people with cancer also involve a denial of disappointment that parallels the supposed efficacy of prayer and religious observance in traditional societies.

This paper shows how individuals in late modern social conditions seek to imbue dying, and caring for the dying, with meaning. Accounts provided in a survey of 250 individuals who knew people who had died in the UK are examined. The analysis counters the view that the denial of death is widespread in conditions where religion no longer offers individuals a meaningful narrative for the dying self. Scripts for proclaiming heroic self-identity in the face of death are promoted by cultural experts and appropriated by many lay individuals. This involves a struggle against external and internal enemies to gain knowledge, the opportunity to demonstrate courage and a beatific state of emotional accompaniment in which `carers' and dying people participate. Unlike more traditional forms of heroism, this script deviates from celebrating solely masculine qualities and includes a female heroics of care, concern and emotional expression. At the same time, some deaths cannot be written into this script, which is particularly well suited to deaths from cancer and AIDs. The deaths of the very old, the mentally confused and sudden unexpected deaths are often difficult to interpret in these heroic terms. Additionally, a rival script exists amongst some lay individuals that stands in opposition to the professional consensus on the desirability of open awareness. This emphasises the benefits of continuing the everyday project of the self oblivious of oncoming death, with others shouldering the burden of awareness in an attempt to protect the dying person against the strain of knowledge. This rival script, however, commands decreasing allegiance in a society where the project of the self is rarely given over to the care of others, and trust is commonly negotiated in confessional moments.