Internet Health and the 21st-Century Patient

Written Communication Oct 2009

Internet Health and the 21st-Century Patient

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
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (9)

Cameron (2023)

Agentive assemblages in online patient spaces

Technical Communication Quarterly
Wolfe et al. (2023)

Written Arguments About Vaccination: Experimental Studies in the United States …

Written Communication
Singer (2019)

Embracing Wildcard Sources: Information Literacy in the Age of Internet Health

College English
Bakke (2019)

Trust-Building in a Patient Forum: The Interplay of Professional and Personal E…

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
Edwell et al. (2018)

Healing Arts: Rhetorical<i>Techne</i>as Medical (Humanities) Intervention

Technical Communication Quarterly

Show all 9 →

Hannah et al. (2018)

Mapping the Terrain: Examining the Conditions for Alignment Between the Rhetori…

Technical Communication Quarterly
Kenzie et al. (2018)

Teaching Writing for the Health Professions: Disciplinary Intersections and Ped…

Technical Communication Quarterly
Sterponi et al. (2017)

Endangered Literacies? Affordances of Paper-Based Literacy in Medical Practice …

Written Communication
Teston (2016)

Rhetoric, Precarity, and mHealth Technologies

Rhetoric Society Quarterly

Cites in this index (1)

Koerber et al. (2008)

Guest Editors' Introduction: Online Health Communication

Technical Communication Quarterly

Also cites 17 works outside this index ↓

10.1108/09593840410542484

↗
10.1057/palgrave.jmm.5050101

↗
Burke, K. (1969)

A rhetoric of motives

↗
10.56021/9780801885846

↗
10.1111/j.1467-9566.2008.01092.x

↗
10.1089/cpb.2006.9.494

↗
10.1001/archderm.135.2.151

↗
Eysenbach, G. (2001)

Consumer health informatics in the Internet age

↗
10.1136/bmj.319.7220.1294

↗
10.1080/713768551

↗
10.1111/1467-9566.00360

↗
10.1080/1369118042000305629

↗
10.1177/02632760122051661

↗
10.1111/j.1467-9566.2005.00466.x

↗
10.1515/9781400827503

↗
10.1017/CBO9780511666865

↗
10.1111/1467-9566.t01-1-00356

↗

CrossRef global citation count: 30 View in citation network →