From A to Zines: Narrative Threat Modeling in Reproductive Health Media
Professor Lucy Simko and some of the students who worked on the zine project with her in the Summer Research Institute this past summer. Join us in the Barnard Zine Library on Friday, September 19 from 12-1. Light refreshments likely.
"Post-Roe, people capable of pregnancy face a fragmented reproductive privacy landscape, with risks spanning legal, digital, and interpersonal domains. These conditions demand new forms of privacy guidance. We analyzed 212 reproductive health zines—a DIY, subversive, and collectively produced media genre—to understand how they communicate reproductive health information. Zines foreground embodied, first-person narratives interwoven with historical context, medical guidance, and activist messaging. We found their use of subversive or alternative medical knowledge enhanced credibility in contexts of low institutional trust. While some zines offer digital privacy strategies, many focus on avoiding institutional exposure altogether. These emotionally resonant, context-sensitive accounts illustrate threat models attuned to the entangled risks of interpersonal betrayal, legal precarity, and surveillance. We conclude with design implications for how zines might better support people navigating reproductive risk through what we call narrative threat modeling—a situated practice that communicates privacy strategies through story, tone, and form rather than technical instructions or prescriptive checklists."