Internet Health and the 21st-Century Patient: A Rhetorical View

Judy Z. Segal University of British Columbia

Abstract

Internet health—here, the public use of information Web sites to facilitate decision making on matters of health and illness—is a rhetorical practice, involving text and trajectories of influence. A fulsome account of it requires attention to all parts of the rhetorical triangle—the speaker, the subject matter, and the audience—yet most scholarship on Internet health focuses on the speaker only: it typically raises concerns primarily about the dangers of unreliable sources, suggesting that, where speakers are reliable and information is accurate, Internet health simply empowers patients. This essay turns attention to the other elements of the triangle. It argues that health information is a complex entity—not only transmitted but also transformed by the Web—and, further, that Internet-health users are a complex audience—not only informed but also transformed by the Web. Rhetorically-minded researchers are well positioned to study not simply the informed patient but rather, more comprehensively, the wired one.

Journal
Written Communication
Published
2009-10-01
DOI
10.1177/0741088309342362
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (15)

  1. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  2. Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Written Communication
  4. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  5. College English
Show all 15 →
  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Communication Design Quarterly
  3. Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Technical Communication Quarterly
  6. Written Communication
  7. Communication Design Quarterly
  8. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  9. Communication Design Quarterly
  10. Communication Design Quarterly

References (42) · 1 in this index

  1. 10.1108/09593840410542484
  2. 10.1057/palgrave.jmm.5050101
  3. The rhetoric (L. Cooper, Trans.)
  4. UPDATE 2-Google releases Google Health for medical records
  5. Cyberchondriacs: Rising numbers are Googling their aches and pains
Show all 42 →
  1. Paper presented at the University of British Columbia
  2. A rhetoric of motives
  3. 10.56021/9780801885846
  4. 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2008.01092.x
  5. 10.1089/cpb.2006.9.494
  6. 10.1001/archderm.135.2.151
  7. Consumer health informatics in the Internet age
  8. 10.1136/bmj.319.7220.1294
  9. The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.)
  10. Vital decisions: How Internet users decide what information to trust when they or their l…
  11. Frank, A.W. ( 2002). What’s wrong with medical consumerism? In S. Henderson & A. Petersen (Eds.), Consuming h…
  12. New York Times Magazine
  13. Retrieved June
  14. 10.1080/713768551
  15. Henderson, Sara. ( 2002). Consumerism in the Hospital Context. In S. Henderson & A. Petersen (Eds.), Consumin…
  16. 10.1111/1467-9566.00360
  17. 10.1080/1369118042000305629
  18. Technical Communication Quarterly
  19. 10.1177/02632760122051661
  20. The way men act
  21. Disintermediation
  22. Understanding media: The extensions of man
  23. Duke University Libraries Digital Collections
  24. 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2005.00466.x
  25. Nettleton, Sarah. ( 1997). Governing the risky self: How to become healthy, wealthy, and wise. In A. Peterson…
  26. Governing risky genes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation
  27. Medicine and the reign of technology
  28. 10.1515/9781400827503
  29. 10.1017/CBO9780511666865
  30. 10.1111/1467-9566.t01-1-00356
  31. Health and the rhetoric of medicine
  32. How is the health subject made? Nineteenth-century patent-medicine advertising and the fi…
  33. The social transformation of American medicine
  34. Every man his own physician
  35. The age of anxiety: A history of America’s turbulent affair with Tranquilizers
  36. Rhetoric online: Persuasion and politics on the World Wide Web
  37. Microsoft Research. Retrieved May