How Physicians and Medical Knowledge is Assessed in a Health Forum
Hans GıessenWeb 2.0 is often referred to as ‘social’ or participatory. A genre of Web 2.0 to which this certainly applies is forums. Every user can take part in communication exchange and publish his or her knowledge, experience and his or her very own opinions. This study focuses on the genre of forums. I qualitatively (and according to discourse- or content-analytical criteria) analyzed the special features of such lay communication in the context of a specific forum. In terms of content, I am referring to a forum from Germany that deals with health issues. The aim was to examine how medical professionals and medical knowledge are valued. Since it is difficult to access exact numbers of users in the context of such a forum, I selected a specific website that appears in the list of the most visited websites, and that already has a special probability of being accessed due to its URL (hence the name): www.gesundheit.de (according to the legal notice, this forum is operated by Alliance Healthcare Germany, based in Frankfurt am Main). The topics were selected from posts published between December 2018 and April 2019. The contributions were transferred unchanged, i.e. including the orthographic and grammatical errors found in the original.
Zur Bewertung der Ärzteschaft und des medizinischen Wissens in einem Gesundheitsforum
Hans GıessenDas Web 2.0 wird oft als „sozial“ oder partizipativ bezeichnet. Ein Genre des Web 2.0, für das dies sicherlich und vom Grundsatz her uneingeschränkt gilt, sind Foren. Jeder Benutzer kann am Kommunikationsaustausch teilnehmen und sein Wissen, seine Erfahrungen und seine Meinung frei und unbegrenzt veröffentlichen. Diese Studie konzentriert sich daher auf das Genre der Foren. Ich habe die Besonderheiten einer solchen Laienkommunikation im Kontext eines bestimmten Forums qualitativ und nach diskurs- oder inhaltsanalytischen Kriterien analysiert. Inhaltlich beziehe ich mich auf ein Forum aus Deutschland, das sich mit Gesundheitsfragen befasst. Ziel war es zu untersuchen, wie medizinisches Fachpersonal und medizinisches Wissen geschätzt werden. Da es im Kontext eines solchen Forums schwierig ist, auf eine genaue Anzahl von Benutzern zuzugreifen, habe ich eine bestimmte Website ausgewählt, die in der Liste der am häufigsten besuchten Websites aufgeführt ist und die aufgrund ihrer URL bereits eine besondere Wahrscheinlichkeit für den Zugriff aufweist (daher: der Name): www.gesundheit.de (laut rechtlichem Hinweis wird dieses Forum von Alliance Healthcare Germany mit Sitz in Frankfurt am Main betrieben). Die Forenbeiträge wurden dann aufgenommen und untersucht, wenn der jeweils letzte Forenbeitrag in der Zeit zwischen Dezember 2018 und April 2019 veröffentlicht wurde. Die Beiträge wurden unverändert übernommen, d. h. einschließlich der im Original gefundenen orthografischen und grammatikalischen Fehler.
Web 2.0 is often referred to as ‘social’ or participatory. A genre of Web 2.0 to which this certainly applies is forums. Every user can take part in the communication exchange and publish his or her knowledge, experience and his or her very own opinions. This study focuses on the genre of forums. I qualitatively (and according to discourse or contentanalytical criteria) analyzed the special features of such lay communication in the context of a specific forum. In terms of content, I am referring to a forum from Germany that deals with health issues. The aim was to examine how medical professionals and medical knowledge are valued. Since it is difficult to access exact numbers of users in the context of such a forum, I selected a specific website that appears in the list of the most visited websites, and that already has a special probability of being accessed due to its URL (hence the name): www.gesundheit.de (according to the legal notice this forum is operated by Alliance Healthcare Germany, based in Frankfurt am Main). The topics were selected from posts published between December 2018 and April 2019. The contributions were transferred unchanged, i.e. including the orthographic and grammatical errors found in the original. It was reasonable to assume that a forum in which users meet to inform themselves about diseases in order to prepare themselves for or to follow-up visits at the doctor will also be looking for alternative treatments and that users who are disappointed with medical reactions will express themselves accordingly. Thus, it is the medium itself that suggests that critical positions on doctors, but possibly on clinical medicine as a whole, may dominate. The result, however, was that there is broad basic trust in medicine, at least in Germany. Against the background described, this is quite surprising. In the context of the forum examined, there was also a fundamental acceptance of the medical system as a whole. Whilst the purpose of this forum was assumed to be to absorb criticism and to seek alternative opinions (and, if necessary, to seek alternative therapy), there was little to no fundamental criticism. Thus, whilst this forum seems to be designed with the intent of enabling the expression of anger and frustration, there still is a dominant acceptance of medical science and even the medical profession. There is rarely criticism of individual doctors, too. If an individual physician is criticized, the authors in this forum keep their criticism with the respective doctors and very rarely propose alternative healing methods. Even with medication, there is little or no rejection of standard or conventional medicine. My hypothesis is that the function and associated seriousness that is expressed in the name of the forum may thus lead to an indeed fundamentally medicine-oriented form of discussion. As a research article, the paper of course does not and doesn’t want to make any assumptions about the reasons why (at least in the context of this forum) rationality is so fundamentally accepted. As I said, alternative methods are almost irrelevant, be they are close to the medical system, like homeopathy; be they remote to the system, such as magic. As a research article, the paper is limited to examining the facts and describing the dominance of the scientific belief system even in situations of crises and under unpleasant to lethal conditions. Another not insignificant observation is that in almost all contributions on this health forum, the assessment of the trustworthiness and the expertise of the forum authors were particularly important. This is obviously not just about the assessment of the communication partners, but also about the picture that one gives about oneself. Contributors are probably afraid of only being taken seriously if they can credibly demonstrate their own dismay or their own expertise. This may lead to problems in the relationship between ‘actual experts’ (i.e. medical professionals) and laypersons. However, here, too, it was found that surprisingly few problems have arisen.
