Googling Girls Kissing - Information-Seeking Behaviour of Queer Youth Born Between 1994–1995

Aug 25, 2026

Uploaded by Ezra

This study investigates the information practices of three queer participants born in the mid-1990s and currently living in Toronto, using semi-structured interviews. It examines how an information-poverty environment shaped adolescence, including restricted access created by heteronormative social worlds. Participants also created Information Horizon Interview (IHI) maps to trace how they identified, learned language for identity, and developed information-seeking trends. Findings align with information poverty concepts such as secrecy, deception, and risk-taking, revealing both negative and positive internet and media knowledge about queerness. Implications emphasize continued gender and sexual identity education for youth.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Literature Review

Research Methods

© 2024 Isobel Carnegie. This is an Open Access article distributed under CC-BY. Googling Girls Kissing: Information-Seeking Behaviour of Queer Youth Born Between 1994‒1995 Isobel Carnegie Abstract This study examines the information practices of three Queer people born in the mid-1990s and currently living in Toronto via semi-structured interviews. Participants went through adolescence in an information poverty landscape, made as such by aheteronormative insider world. This study seeks to understand how they came to identify as they do now, how they discovered language to articulate their identity, and the trends in their information-seeking behaviour. In addition to interviews, participants created Information Horizon Interview (IHI) maps. The data depicts trends and patterns consistent with Elfreda A. Chapman’s information poverty concepts: secrecy, deception, and risk-taking. Applying this theory to information-seeking and -encountering patterns of my participants reveals both negative and positive information regarding Queerness on the internet and in media. The implication of my findings is that a continued need for the education of youth on gender and sexual identity is needed to ensure positive and accurate knowledge is learned. Keywords information-seeking behaviour, sexuality, gender, identity language, information poverty The iJournal, Vol. 10, No. 1, Fall 2024 16 Isobel Carnegie Content note: This paper contains some graphic language and discussions of homophobia and sexual content. Introduction As a person born in the late 1990s, I had never seen two women kissin real life until high school; I struggled to visualize this act that I was (secretly) thinking about—and I thought about it a lot. The media representation of Queer people, their relationships—their sexual relationships—was rare and often ended in tragedy or was shrouded in guilt and shame. My sex education curriculum never discussed Queer relationships or sex, never even mentioned it as a possibility. So how was I to know it was even an option? Essayist Jill Gutowitz (2022) was born in 1991 and writes: I was scared of homosexuality because I was uneducated about it, wholly unexposed to LGBTQ people, both in the small, conservative, Catholic bubble of a hometown I was raised in and in the media I was consuming. I was born in 1991, a time when LGBTQ people were being reduced to stereotypes, pigeonholed into outdated narratives, shamed for fucking and loving . . . I didn’t know people were just allowed to be gay. (pp. 9–10) My story, like Gutowitz’s, is not unique. I began thinking: where did I even learn the language I use now? How and where did I find information existing in an information poverty landscape regarding gender and sexuality? I asked Queer people born in the mid-90s to tell me the story of how they came to identify as they do now, to better understand how Queer people discovered language and the information-seeking behaviours and trends that arose in their journeys, despite growing up in information poverty regarding these topics. Literature Review Many studies have turned to adolescent information seeking as a subject (e.g., Todd, 1999); however, there is a—somewhat surprising—gap within Library and Information Science literature regarding the information-seeking behaviour or needs of specifically Queer youth. In 1999, Dresang wrote “More Research Needed: Informal Information-Seeking Behavior of Youth on the Internet,” and, since then, many of the studies include the word “addiction” in the title. There is an evocative parallel to be drawn here between the academic The iJournal, Vol. 10, No. 1, Fall 2024 17 Isobel Carnegie discourse and the media landscape navigated by my participants—portraying the “tragic” lives of Queer people and ingeminating a singular narrative. Up until very recently, there has been little research on the intersection of Queer youth and information seeking at all. Delmonaco et al. (

FAQs

这项研究研究了谁以及在哪个地区进行？

研究对象是三位出生于1994至1995年前后的在多伦多生活的酷儿人士，数据通过半结构化访谈收集。

研究如何获取与呈现参与者的信息寻求经历？

除了访谈，参与者还绘制“信息地平线访谈（IHI）”地图，用来呈现他们如何寻找信息、形成身份表达语言，以及行为趋势。

研究用到了哪些与信息贫困相关的分析概念？

研究发现的趋势与模式与Elfreda A. Chapman的信息贫困概念相一致，包括保密、欺骗以及冒险行为，并据此讨论网络与媒体中关于“酷儿气质”的信息如何同时带来负面与正面影响。

Aug 25, 2026

Uploaded by Ezra