Social Production of Medicine in a Virtual Health Community Organization

This research explores new systems of marketing developing as a result of transformations in technology (Web 2.0), consumer/marketer value systems, forms of discourse and institutional roles, and provides insights into developments in healthcare provision through a netnographic inquiry of a web-based Medicine 2.0 community organization, patientslikeme.com (PLM). I attract attention to the meso level legitimation processes that develop and maintain these new forms of interaction, and enable people's participation in sharing their private health data and experiences. Theoretically, I point to (1) the shift from government intervention to the multitude of diverse healthcare actors in organizing sharing of private health information and negotiating meanings of privacy/disclosure through non-dominating discursive regimes, and (2) (re)institutionalization of surveillance in healthcare through clinical research and multilevel connectedness among healthcare actors enabled by PLM.