Written Communication Oct 2009

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
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation context

Cited by in this index (16)

  1. Rakedzon et al. (2025)
    Beyond Logic: Developing Pathos and Ethos in STEM Undergraduate Communication U…
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  2. Cameron (2023)
    Agentive assemblages in online patient spaces
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  3. Wolfe et al. (2023)
    Written Arguments About Vaccination: Experimental Studies in the United States …
    Written Communication
  4. Bakke (2019)
    Writing for Patients on the Participatory Web: Heuristics for Purpose-Driven Personas
    IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  5. Singer (2019)
    Embracing Wildcard Sources: Information Literacy in the Age of Internet Health
    College English
Show all 16 →
  1. Bakke (2019)
    Trust-Building in a Patient Forum: The Interplay of Professional and Personal E…
    Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  2. Jones et al. (2018)
    Guest editors' introduction wearable technologies and communication design
    Communication Design Quarterly
  3. Edwell et al. (2018)
    Healing Arts: RhetoricalTechneas Medical (Humanities) Intervention
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  4. Hannah et al. (2018)
    Mapping the Terrain: Examining the Conditions for Alignment Between the Rhetori…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  5. Kenzie et al. (2018)
    Teaching Writing for the Health Professions: Disciplinary Intersections and Ped…
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  6. Hayes (2018)
    Family Resemblances
    Double Helix
  7. Sterponi et al. (2017)
    Endangered Literacies? Affordances of Paper-Based Literacy in Medical Practice …
    Written Communication
  8. Jones et al. (2017)
    Design principles for health wearables
    Communication Design Quarterly
  9. Teston (2016)
    Rhetoric, Precarity, and mHealth Technologies
    Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  10. Burleson (2015)
    The hospitalist model: are hospitals informing patients?
    Communication Design Quarterly
  11. Meloncon et al. (2015)
    Special issue introduction: Charting an emerging field: the rhetorics of health…
    Communication Design Quarterly

References (42) · 1 in this index

  1. 10.1108/09593840410542484
     ↗
  2. 10.1057/palgrave.jmm.5050101
     ↗
  3. Aristotle (1960)
    The rhetoric (L. Cooper, Trans.)
  4. Auchard, E. (2008)
    UPDATE 2-Google releases Google Health for medical records
  5. Bendall, L. (2007)
    Cyberchondriacs: Rising numbers are Googling their aches and pains
Show all 42 →
  1. Briggs, C.L.
    Paper presented at the University of British Columbia
  2. Burke, K. (1969)
    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. Eysenbach, G. (2001)
    Consumer health informatics in the Internet age
     ↗
  8. 10.1136/bmj.319.7220.1294
     ↗
  9. Foucault, M. (1973)
    The birth of the clinic: An archaeology of medical perception (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.)
  10. Fox, S. (2002)
    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. Goetz, T. (2008)
    New York Times Magazine
  13. Gould, E. (2008)
    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. Koerber et al. (2008)
    Guest Editors' Introduction: Online Health Communication
    Technical Communication Quarterly
  19. 10.1177/02632760122051661
     ↗
  20. Lipman, E. (1992)
    The way men act
  21. McCracken, G. (2004)
    Disintermediation
  22. McLuhan, M. (2003)
    Understanding media: The extensions of man
  23. Medicine and Madison Avenue. (2008)
    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. Novas, C. (2003)
    Governing risky genes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation
  27. Reiser, S.J. (1978)
    Medicine and the reign of technology
  28. 10.1515/9781400827503
     ↗
  29. 10.1017/CBO9780511666865
     ↗
  30. 10.1111/1467-9566.t01-1-00356
     ↗
  31. Segal, J.Z. (2005)
    Health and the rhetoric of medicine
  32. Segal, J.Z. (2009)
    How is the health subject made? Nineteenth-century patent-medicine advertising and the fi…
  33. Starr, P. (1982)
    The social transformation of American medicine
  34. Theobold, J. (1764)
    Every man his own physician
  35. Tone, A. (2009)
    The age of anxiety: A history of America’s turbulent affair with Tranquilizers
  36. Warnick, B. (2007)
    Rhetoric online: Persuasion and politics on the World Wide Web
  37. White, R.W. (2008)
    Microsoft Research. Retrieved May
CrossRef global citation count: 30 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related articles

  1. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication Mar 2026
    Canon to Code: Rhetorical Rulemaking for Generative AI Content Audits and Governance ↗
    Miriam F. Williams
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism assessment technical communication artificial intelligence
  2. Rhetorica Sep 2025
    Herrick, Hoskyns, and the Ars Praedicandi : Sartorial Metaphor in the Rhetorical Tradition ↗
    Brent Nelson
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism discourse analysis
  3. Rhetorica Jun 2024
    Sit sacrilegus— A neglected “topos” of Roman invective in Cicero’s indignationes ↗
    Christoph Schwameis
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism
  4. Rhetoric & Public Affairs Mar 2024
    Disorder in the Court: Morality, Myth, and the Insanity Defense ↗
    Jaclyn Bruner
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism argument
  5. Rhetorica Jan 2024
    Mind the Audience: Forensic Rhetoric, Persuasion, and Identification by Reference to the Social Identity of Athenian dikastai ↗
    Vasileios Adamidis
    classical rhetoric modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism argument