The entire infrastructure and culture of medicine is being transformed by digital technology, the Internet and mobile devices. Cyberspace is now regularly used to provide medical advice and medication, with great numbers of sufferers immersing themselves within virtual communities. What are the implications of this medicalisation of cyberspace for how people make sense of health and identity?
The Medicalisation of Cyberspace is the first book to explore the relationship between digital culture and medical sociology. It examines how technology is redefining expectations of and relationships with medical culture, addressing the following questions:
• How will the rise of digital communities affect traditional notions of medical expertise?
• What will the medicalisation of cyberspace mean in a new era of posthuman enhancements?
• How should we regard hype and exaggeration about science in the media and how can this encourage public engagement with bioethics?
This book looks at the complex interactions between health, medicalisation, cyberculture, the body and identity. It addresses topical issues, such as medical governance, reproductive rights, eating disorders, Web 2.0, and perspectives on posthumanism. It is essential reading for healthcare professionals and social, philosophical and cultural theorists of health.
Table of Contents
| Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: SECTION ONE: Chapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3: Chapter 4: |
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Chapter 5: SECTION TWO: CYBER BODIES Chapter 6: Chapter 7: Chapter 8: Chapter 9: Conclusion: Afterword |
Reviews
“The Medicalization of Cyberspace is a compelling and comprehensive consideration of how the Internet and web are impacting medical practice, communication between experts and patients, the construction of the posthuman body, and many other pressing issues. In clear and precise prose, it consistently avoids the binary rhetoric all too prevalent in discussions about cyberspace and explores the complex interactions currently taking place between and around medical practices and the web. Highly recommended for anyone interested in how the digital cultures of cyberspace are shaping the practice, understanding, and consumption of medicine in the contemporary period.”
N. Katherine Hayles, UCLA, Author of ‘How We Became Posthuman’
Book Reviews in: Body & Society, New England Journal of Medicine, Surveillance and Society, BioCentre, Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics
Popularity: 11% [?]
wat did it look like? who cares its are things happen.
ah, well, i’m not sure about annual, but definitely 2009!
Just a quick note: I wonder if Mr Sofroniou is the same Chris Sofroniou I knew at school (Edgware Comprehensive School). We shared the same teacher in a number of classes. I cannot really make out the face too clearly in the picture.
Hi Andy,
Here’s what I read: an article in Trinidad & Tobago’s Daily Express dated 22nd December 2008 which was headlined “Gene doping – the next sporting frontier?” Your views wer prominently featured. For what it’s worth, I was very impressed with you way of thinking.
For years I have been saying that athletes who wish to take performance enhancing medications should be allowed to do so under controlled circumnstances and be made to share the benefits derived therefrom with the less fortunate – healthwise – in the wider community. If these athletes want to and agree to be human guinea pigs then that’s their right. Anyhow you take it, they will find ways to beat the traditional ways of doing things.
I admire your thinking.
Henry
Hi, just caught this on my post-Christmas podcast binge. A quality performance. I’m enjoying the book too…..James
it seems ridiculous that Michael Phelps is getting so much flak from this supposed marijuana scandal… Since when have we taken the reporting of trashy tabloids so seriously?
The style of writing is quite familiar to me. Did you write guest posts for other bloggers?
After reading this article, I just feel that I really need more information on the topic. Could you share some more resources ?
Fantastic site! i will come back again soon..
check out http://www.veryvoo.com
It’s a new site, but it has potential to grow into the social network for creative people who don’t like social networks and self-promotion, because it focuses on collaboration.
Thanks for coming down and speaking yesterday Andy – I think it inspired most people and ruffled more than a few tail feathers. I’ll be in touch very soon.:-)
- JJ
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what should be legal allowed is a hard debate, after all is it not up to the individual what he or she wants?
Andy, Would love to know more about your work. Graham Jeffrey connected us – in relation to a citizen media project we’re planning in Newham. Have you been researching only, or been involved in any actual projects? Would really welcome links to research etc. For more on what we’re doing, see here – http://generalapp.newschallenge.org/SNC/ViewItem.aspx?pguid=6aee8166-fb7c-4a2e-8581-fa6f6ff036dd&itemguid=eec8e3e1-b456-4549-815f-bbb66ff54967
Jess
The thing about a beginner is that they’re eager. This is both good and bad. It’s good because they’ll put full effort into things and learn as much as they can, it’s bad because their eagerness makes them impatient! Many’s the beginner who didn’t get dramatic results in the first month and gave up because of it.
Nanotechnology in the biological field will be utilized in the form of Eugenics to ‘enhance’ those few and to rid the many of ‘undesired’ genetic traits, or it will be used for simple genocide. What other purpose can it possibly serve when most of the cures or improvements it is aiming to provide are argued to be available from natural resources being supressed? I can’t imagine humankind would benefit from such a technology, specially since most of the consumer technology to date has been used for, and proved to be, nothing more than supression/retardation/radiation poisoning of the human mind.
Not many people get to travel to three continents in the same year – well done! Congratulations on your marriage and I hope becoming a father brings you all sorts of unexpected joys! :) Do you know if it’s a girl or a boy yet?
Hey, I stumbled across your site through Msn and just wanted to say that I really like it. I’ll definitely be bookmarking it!
In the case of professional communicators, retweets (RTs) that endorse clients are usually marked as such ie Check out this great article from…+ link (client) or Interesting piece on … Link. Please RT (client). To me, most of the other tweets fall into the news category and they get to be RTed because a user has deemed them worthy to be shared.
Best to keep it simple and let the reader interpret the tweets intent. I don’t want twitter interfering in the process.
I know the background of everyone I follow respective of the Olympics and consequently know their agenda.
http://twitter.com/MauriceCardinal
I’m not sure I see what the problem is with vanity tweets. Even if one tweets information in order to be liked, the information is still passed on in the exact same way as if the poster genuinely felt strongly about the news.
What definition of vanity are we assuming? Do I actually care if the intention of an unknown person who does not punch me in the face, for example, is actually that s/he wants to be liked by my friends and not that they actually care about me? No, I simply care that I am not randomly punched in the face. It has no baring on the actual punch.
Just as the intention has no baring on the truth or falsity of the information being dispersed.
If someone spreads virtue for non-virtuous reasons, I don’t think it follows that the thing being spread is altered in its virtuousness.
I think this question is a good one for re-tweets, for sure. Not so sure how it applies for many other tweets; most of the people I follow, for example, either chat with others they’re friends will or offer up random status, their own news and articles, etc. Some of which could fall into one of the three categories you mention here, but many do not.
As far as re-tweeting goes though, I think they can fall in all three categories, either singly or all three at once, and that it’s perfectly ok to retweet for vanity’s sake. There is another re-tweet type that I’m not as comfortable with: the “please re-tweet my news/service/etc” or promotional re-tweet. I try to look at them on a case-by-case basis, but they feel inherently spammy most of the time. So maybe ad a “spam” category to the three?
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Ah yes, the scrutiny of the arm-chair heroes; those who would say that Linford only won because of drugs. Do they not recall that Linford stood at the line in Barcelona, in Stuttgart, in Paris, in Madrid, in so many places, lined up next to the very best (and probably equally doped up) and that it was his mind not his body that allowed him to win.
Linford is a ‘god’ not so much in body, but in the vastness of his understanding of what it takes for a man to let himself win, to over-come the doubt and the panic, the weak legs, the nausea, the pending sense of failure. Yet Linford did not crawl under a rock; he won the damn races for himself, his family, his culture and, yes, also for Britain.
Sorry to be so emphatic but anyone who suggests that Linford is not a true champion is an absolute fool, who know neither themselves, not what it takes to be great. I say to those people, stand up and face your own fears, and be the judge of yourself only.
Errol
I agree Andy that doping & new media activism are at the forefront of Olympic controversy. Doping has always been a challenge, but new media is the issue having the most impact on the health of the Games.
For example, Chicago lost the 2016 bid to Rio partially because the new media resistance in Chicago was so well organized, but also because in general, the sophistication of new media is less advanced in Brazil, which poses less of an ambush marketing threat to official Olympic sponsors like Coca-Cola and Visa. Granted, Brazil is a growing South American power with a stronger economy than most, but not in relation to global impact.
If I were the IOC, I’d much rather deal with Rio than Europe or America in this respect, at least until social media is more defined and the IOC has a better understanding of it. The challenge the IOC has however is similar to that of newspapers who ignored and undermined the internet for years naively believing they could eventually control it.
For the record, I’m pro-Olympics – with a Twist, which means I love the sport, but hate the politics.
I’ve cautioned traditional street protestors in Vancouver for years that the fight is no longer on the ground. It is in the Ethernet and that they are foolish to go head to head with a patriotic IOC army that is hundreds if not thousands of times their size physically and economically.
Anti-Olympic activists will never be successful in their goal to kill the Olympics. You can’t kill an institution so ingrained in society, but if they use social media properly they can help fix it. The IOC purposely polarizes anti and pro Olympic groups because it keeps people in Host communities fighting among themselves instead of finding fault with the IOC – an old Sun Tzu strategy.
Vancouver is the first Olympic city to be in such a powerful “new media” position, but alas we are not organized enough to leverage it properly to force Olympic sponsors to be more accountable respective of athletes and Host communities, which means it will be up to London 2012 to push it over the edge. Social media was almost sophisticated enough in 2008, but the secret partnership between the IOC and communist China regarding mainstream news media caught activists off guard.
The biggest mistake 2010 Vancouver made was to allow, once again, local mainstream news media to partner with the IOC. It should be illegal for an advertiser to have so much economic influence over local newspapers and television, especially when such a large part of the community trusts and mistakenly believes news media to be non partisan. Surprisingly, self titled social media experts in Vancouver don’t see bias as a problem, at least not enough to challenge the conflict of interest relationship. Many were too busy trying to figure out how they could personally benefit from the Olympics instead of helping to improve the system. They literally helped local newspapers sell out our community.
Anti-Olympic activists too were actually more concerned about seeing their names in local newspapers, which basically is a tempest in a teapot from the perspective of Olympic sponsors like McDonalds or GE, than they were about engaging the IOC on a global platform.
Olympic sponsors like Coca-Cola are not intimidated in the least by local complaints in a Host community, but they will however think much differently when complaints from Vancouver of IOC abuse ricochet around the world to future Olympic regions like London, Sochi and Rio. If the IOC can’t attract sponsors they will be forced to treat athletes and Host communities with more respect, or they will go bankrupt. Follow the money.
For new media Olympic activists to succeed they must first address the issue of the IOC partnering with local mainstream news media in Host regions. If this incestuous relationship is undermined, or ideally prohibited, the IOC’s mouthpiece is in effect gagged and a more truthful, realistic message to the community can be more easily distributed. When the IOC no longer controls the message Olympic sponsors will very seriously question whether they can risk associating their brands with an event that has a long history of harming Host communities. At the end of the day it won’t be the IOC that will take the direct hit, it will be companies like Coca-Cola. It’s not a coincidence that four TOPs Olympics sponsor bailed out last year. Kodak, Lenovo, Manulife Financial, and Johnson & Johnson all said adios to the IOC, a record number in all of Olympic history, and all but J&J did so well before the recession was an issue.
One small company in Vancouver that was bullied mercilessly by the IOC, but stood their ground was the Olympia restaurant on Denman. Their story is groundbreaking. I worked with them from the very beginning and used new media strategies to bring their fight with the IOC to a world stage. This little restaurant is a perfect example of the impact new media has on an Olympic region and the IOC.
Here’s their story
http://www.998denman.com/Page2.html
And here’s what Vancouverites think about the IOC respective of the restaurant.
http://www.olyblog.com/f/09/998Denman.shtml
Social media represents the new face of Olympic activism where the mantra is FIX IT! Instead of KILL IT!
Cheers,
Maurice Cardinal
Editor: http://www.OlyBLOG.com
Author: http://www.LeverageOlympicMomentum.com
Is there an online video of your keynote?
Can we we get copies of the papers from this event? We are the volunteers at No Games Chicago and we successfully organized to stop the 2016 Olympics from coming to our city.
Tom Tresser
Chicago
312-804-3230
tom@tresser.com