Communicating Medical Information Online. The Case of Adolescent Health Websites
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2020.i15.630Keywords:
multimodality, discourse analysis, online communication, medical information, adolescentsAbstract
In recent times, our understanding and practice of public health has been increasingly guided by technological advances generally based on governmental decisions (Green et al. 2009). Not only does the growth of a public system for protecting health hinge upon scientific discovery and dissemination of medical knowledge, but also the World Wide Web has considerably changed the health communication environment.
This paper considers the online health information addressed to adolescents. Given that young people have difficulty accessing traditional health services, in theory, the Internet might offer them a more confidential and convenient access to an unprecedented level of information about a diverse range of subjects (Hansen et al. 2003). In this context, the analysis concentrates on ‘adolescent health,’ and compares and contrasts the discourse of three websites: Healthdirect, a free service supported by the Government of Australia, SAHM managed by a multidisciplinary society based in the USA, Canada and the UK, and TeenMentalHealth.Org managed by the WHO (World Health Organization) Collaborating Centre in Mental Health Policy and Training. The study is designed to highlight both the specificities of communication of ‘adolescent health’ (Harvey 2014; Gotti, Maci and Sala 2015; Garzone and Ilie 2014), and the linguistic/discoursal and visual strategies adopted over the dedicated online platforms. Given the communicative immediacy of the new medium and the specificities of the target audience, it becomes crucial to see how the selected websites both linguistically and visually communicate medical information to adolescent web-users (LeVine and Scollon 2004; Kolucki and Lemish 2011).
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Anderson, Hellen and Corinne Ann Lowen. “Developing Youth-Friendly Family Practice.” Canada Family Physician 56.8 (2010): 737–738.
Askehave, Inger and Ellerup Nielsen. “Digital Genres: A Challenge to Traditional Genre Theory.” Information Technology & People 18.2 (2006):120-141.
Bateman, John A. Text and Image: A Critical Introduction to the Visual/Verbal Divide. London: Routledge, 2014.
Bilal, Dania and Joe Kirby. “Differences and Similarities in Information Seeking: Children and Adults as Web Users.” Information Processing Management 38.5 (2002): 649–670.
Caballero, Rosario. “Theorizing About Genre and Cybergenre.” Computer Resources for Language Learning 2 (2008): 14-27.
Calsamiglia, Helena and Teun van Dijk. “Popularization Discourse and Knowledge About the Genome.” Discourse & Society 15.4 (2004): 369-389.
Candlin, Christopher N. and Sally Candlin. “Discourse, Expertise, and the Management of Health Care Settings.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 35 (2002): 115-137.
Candlin, Christopher N. and Srikant Sarangi. Handbook of Communication in Organisations and Professions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2011.
Chou, Wen-ying S., et al. “Web 2.0 for Health Promotion: Reviewing the Current Evidence.” American Journal of Public Health, 103.1 (2013): e9–e18. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3518341/.
Chretien, Katherine C. and Terry Kind. “Social Media and Clinical Care: Ethical, Professional, and Social Implications.” Circulation 127 (2013): 1413-1421.
Davidson, Donald and Gilbert Harman. Semantics on General Language. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 2012.
Eastin, Matthew S. “Credibility Assessments of Online Health Information: The Effects of Source Expertise and Knowledge of Content.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 6.4 (2006).
Facchinetti, Roberta, Frank Palmer and Manfred Krug. Modality in Contemporary English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2012.
Fairclough, Norman. Critical Discourse Analysis. The Critical Study of Language. London: Routledge, 2013.
---. Language and Power. Harlow: Pearson, 2001.
Freeman, Jaimie L., et al. “How Adolescents Search for and Appraise Online Health Information: A Systematic Review.” The Journal of Pediatrics 195 (2018): 244-255.
Garzone, Giuliana and Srikant Sarangi. Discourse, Ideology and Ethics in Specialized Communication. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007.
Garzone, Giuliana and Cornelia Ilie. Genres and Genre Theory in Transition: Specialized Discourse Across Media and Modes. USA: Brown Walker Press, 2014.
Gotti, Maurizio and Françoise Salager-Meyer. Advances in Medical Discourse Analysis: Oral and Written Contexts. Bern: Peter Lang, 2006.
Gotti, Maurizio, Stefania Maci and Michele Sala. Insights into Medical Communication. Bern: Peter Lang, 2015.
Gray, Nicola J., et al. “Heath Information-Seeking Behaviour in Adolescence. The Place of the Internet.” Social Science and Medicine 60 (2004): 1467-1478.
Green, Lawrence W., et al. “Diffusion Theory and Knowledge Dissemination, Utilization, and Integration in Public Health.” Annual Review of Public Health 30 (2009): 151-174.
Gülich, Elisabeth. “Conversational Techniques Used in Transferring Knowledge Between Medical Experts and Non-Experts.” Discourse Studies 5.2 (2003): 235-263.
Halliday, Michael A.K. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold, 1985.
---. Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold, 1978.
Halmari, Helena and Tuija Virtanen. Persuasion Across Genres: A Linguistic Approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2005.
Hamilton, Heidi E. and Wen-ying S. Chou. The Routledge Handbook of Language and Health Communication. London: Routledge, 2014.
Hansen, Derek L., et al. “Adolescents Searching for Health Information on the Internet: An Observational Study.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 5.4 (2003): e25. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1550572/.
Harvey, Kevin, et al. “‘Am I normal?’ Teenagers, Sexual Health and the Internet.” Social Science & Medicine 65.4 (2007): 771-781.
---. “Health Communication and Adolescents: What do Their Emails Tell Us?” Family Practice 25.4 (2008): 304–311.
Harvey, Kevin, Miriam A. Locher and Louise Mullany. “‘Can I Be at Risk of Getting AIDS?’ A Linguistic Analysis of two Internet Advice Columns on Sexual Health.” Linguistics Online 59.2-3 (2013): 111-32.
Harvey, Kevin. Investigating Adolescent Health Communication: A Corpus Linguistics Approach. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Hawkins, Matthew C., et al. “Social Media and the Patient Experience.” American College of Radiology 13 (2016): 1615-1621.
Hunston, Susan and Geoff Thompson. Evaluation in Texts. Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Hunt, Danel and Kevin Harvey. “Health Communication and Corpus Linguistics: Using Corpus Tools to Analyse Eating Disorder Discourse Online.” Corpora and Discourse Studies. Edited by Paul Baker and Anthony McEnery. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 134-154.
Hyland, Ken. Metadiscourse. London: Continuum, 2005.
Iedema, Rick. “Multimodality, Resemiotisation: Extending the Analysis of Discourse as Multi-Semiotic Practice.” Visual Communication 2.1 (2003): 29-57.
Jackson. Michele H. “Assessing the Structure of Communication on the World Wide Web.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (2006). onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00063.x.
Kolucki, Barbara and Dafna Lemish 2011. “Communicating with Children. Principles and Practices to Nurture, Inspire, Excite, Educate and Heal." United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) www.unicef.org/cbsc/files/CwC_Web(2).pdf.
Kress, Gunther R. Multimodality. A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication. London: Routledge, 2009.
Kress, Gunther R. and Theo van Leeuwen 2001. Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold, 2001.
---. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge, 2006.
LeVine, Philip and Ron Scollon. Discourse and Technology. Multimodal Discourse Analysis. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2004.
McMullan, Miriam. “Patients Using the Internet to Obtain Health Information: How This Affects the Patient-Health Professional Relationship.” Patient Education and Counseling 63.1-2 (2006): 24-28.
Ott Brian and Cameron Walter. “Intertextuality: Interpretive Practice and Textual Strategy.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, (2009).
Prestin, Abby and Wen-ying S. Chou. "Web 2.0 and the Changing Health Communication Environment." The Routledge Handbook of Language and Health Communication. Edited by Heidi E. Hamilton and Wen-ying S. Chou. London: Routledge, 2014. 184-197.
Roberts, Celia and Srikant Sarangi. “Theme-Oriented Discourse Analysis of Medical Encounters.” Medical Education 39 (2005): 632-640.
Rubin, Donald. “Applied Linguistic as a Resource for Understanding and Advancing Health Literacy.” The Routledge Handbook of Language and Health Communication. Edited by Heidi E. Hamilton and Wen-ying S. Chou. London: Routledge, 2014. 153-167.
Sarangi, Srikant and Angus Clarke. “Zone of Expertise and the Management of Uncertainty in Genetics Risk Communication.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 35.2 (2002): 139-171.
Sartori, Giovanni. Homo videns. Roma: Laterza, 1997.
Sbaffi, Laura and Jennifer Rowley. “Trust and Credibility in Online Health Information: A Review and Agenda for Future Research.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 19.6 (2017). https://www.jmir.org/2017/6/e218/.
Skinner, Harvey, et al. 2003. “How Adolescents Use Technology for Health Information: Implications for Health Professionals from Focus Group Studies.” Journal of Medical Internet Research 5.4 (2003): e32. https://www.jmir.org/2003/4/.
Tsui, Amy. English Conversation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Turnbull, Judith. “Knowledge Dissemination Online: The Case of Health Information.” Knowledge Dissemination In and Through the Media: Recontextualizing and Reconceptualizing Expert Discourse. Edited by Marina Bondi, Silvia Cacchiani e Davide Mazzi. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. 290-314.
Wales, Katie. Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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