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‘The Story of My Illness’: Personal Accounts of Illness on the Internet

Michael Hardey

University of Southampton, UKmh7{at}soton.ac.uk

Narratives about health have an established place in the study of the nature of illness and lay encounters with medical expertise. This article is based on research in the electronic realm of the Internet. Within this new and unique space, people have constructed ‘home pages’ that contain accounts of their health and illness. The interactive and dynamic nature of the Internet means that these web pages represent far more than conventional illness narratives. Based on an analysis of home pages a four-fold typology is presented. This framework is used to map the transformation of people from consumers of health information and care to producers of information and care. It is suggested that home pages constitute the emergence of a new genre that forms part of a broader reconfiguration of the relationship between lay and medical expertise.

Key Words: advice • expertise • health • Internet • narrative

Health:, Vol. 6, No. 1, 31-46 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/136345930200600103
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