Nameless strangers, similar others: the affordances of a young people's anonymous online forum for health information practices
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-09-2021-0192 |
| Published date | 02 December 2022 |
| Date | 02 December 2022 |
| Pages | 506-527 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Noora Hirvonen |
Nameless strangers, similar
others: the affordances of a young
people’s anonymous online forum
for health information practices
Noora Hirvonen
Information Studies, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –Thestudy examineshow the technicalfeatures and associatedsocial practicesof an anonymous,text-
based online forum intended for young people make it a unique platform for acquiring and sharing health
informationamong peers.
Design/methodology/approach–The features and content of a young people’s section of a popular Finnish
discussion forum were examined with a focus on health-related threads. Observational notes and thread
content were analysed with a focus on the forum’s affordances for health information practices.
Findings –The findingsindicate that the forum’s affordances including anonymity, persistence, searchability,
cohesionand tolerance enabledthe pooling of peer experiences, opinions and experience-basedadvice on health,
rather thansharing factual information or embracing reciprocaldiscussion. As such,instead of competing fora
cognitive authority position with medical authorities or offering emotional support like tight online support
communities, the anonymous forum served as a platform for young people to gain information on others’
experiencesand opinionson sensitive,mundane and disnormativehealth issuesand for reflectingtheir own lived
experiencesto those of others.
Originality/value –The study is original in its approach to examining the affordances of an online platform
for health information practices. It helps in understanding young people’s ways of using different resources to
meet their diverse health information needs and the value of gaining access to experiential health information.
Keywords Online communities, Affordances, Information practices, Young people, Digital communications,
Health information
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Young people’s vulnerability to misleading or harmful health information circulating in online
environments isa commonly raisedconcern in bothpublic and academicdiscourse(Cusack et al.,
2017). Particularly socialmedia platforms enablingpeople to share news,personal experiences
and views in real-time and globally, have been claimed to accelerate the spread of health-related
dis- and misinformation (Islam et al., 2020). They are also shown to offer spaces for sharing
harmfuluser-generated healthcontent (see Powell et al., 2005 for a criticaloverview; also Hanell
and Sal€
o, 2015) thatcan, for example,contributeto normalisingunhealthy practices,such as self-
harm (Whitlock et al., 2006) or disordered eating (Rodgers et al., 2016). Indeed, the technical
features and associated practices underlying social media applications have created
opportunities for information sharing and seeking in way s that were not possible before.
However, the threat-focuseddiscourse on online information resources reveals a fairlylimited
JD
78,7
506
© Noora Hirvonen. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and
create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full
attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://
creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
The study was funded by the Academy of Finland (Grant No. 299112) and is connected to the GenZ
project, supported by the Academy of Finland (Profi4 318930) and the University of Oulu.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 28 September 2021
Revised 11 October 2022
Accepted 13 October 2022
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 78 No. 7, 2022
pp. 506-527
Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-09-2021-0192
understanding of differentonline spaces (Hanell and Sal€
o, 2015). It tends to disregardboth the
value of information circulating in those spaces and the abilities of people to recognize and
differentiate between different types of information. Moreover, in such discourse, health
information is often framed dichotomously as reliable/non-reliable or true/false rather than
considering how sources can be authoritative and valuable in diverseways (see Wilson, 1983;
Multas and Hirvonen, 2021).
This study focuses on health information shared in a specific kind of online space, an
anonymousonlineforum.Despitetheriseofthereal-nameweb(Hogan, 2013) and platforms
with more sophisticated technological features, such anonymous forums are still popular
(Sharon and John, 2018). Basedon previous research,they can be valuedspecificallyas they can
enable a safe andnon-judgemental (Hanley et al., 2019) environment for obt aining and sharing
information on delicate issues or things that are difficult to discuss with people in one’s
immediate surroundings (Pohjanen and Kortelainen, 2016;Hirvonen et al., 2019;Hasler et al.,
2013). However,while previous studies have contributed to theunderstanding of onlineforums
as platformsfor healthinformationseeking and sharingas well as foremotional support(see e.g.
Eichhorn,2008;Lasker et al., 2005;Meier et al., 2007;Rodham et al.,2007;Brady et al., 2016), they
have rarely focused on how these activities are enabled by both the technical features of the
platformand the socialpracticesthat are associatedto them. Overall,research onyoung people’s
health-related onlinepracticestends to lack reflectionon the complexityof the media beingused
as well as the ways they are being navigated (Goodyear an d Armour, 2018).Instead, research
often addresses health information seeking from “the Internet”(Park and Kwon, 2018).
Moreover, research on health information practices tends to focus on serious health concerns,
rather than everyday health matters (see e.g. Johnson and Case, 2012).
This study contributes to filling in these gaps in research by examining interaction taking
placein a particularanonymous, text-basedonlineforum intendedfor young peoplewith a focus
on the health information circulating in the forum and the information practices that emerge
from the relationship of specific technical features, people and the socio-cultural environment
(see Zhao et al., 2020, p. 230). As such, thestudy advances our knowledge of healthinformation
practicesacross onlinespaces and of the valueand authority ofthis information,specifically for
young people. This understanding is important as onlinepractices shape young people’slives,
includingthe ways they communicate, expressthemselves, learnand develop their identities in
ways that so far,are not well understood (Goodyear and Armour, 2018, p. 1).
2. Theoretical framework and literature review
2.1 Affordances of an online forum for information practices
In thisstudy, informationpracticesare understoodas the situatedand habituatedways in which
people interact with information (see McKenzie,2003) using a variety of physical and symbolic
resources, that is, cultural tools (see Vygotsky, 1978;Wertch,2009), that mediate those practices.
The culturaltools that peopleuse “make certain kinds of actions more possible (and other kinds
of actions less possible)”(Jones, 2020, p. 202). In other words, they come with different
affordances (see Gibson, 1982)—withpotentialor opportunitiesto perform certainactions(Jones,
2020).Yet, they can be usedin differentways and taketheir form frombeing appropriatedwithin
a practice when used by particular people in particular situations (Jones, 2020).
Understood this way, affordances are not properties of things but relational (Kaptelinin
and Nardi, 2012;Jones, 2020) and can be studied through the practices that technology
enables or constrains (Bucher and Helmond, 2017, p. 242;Hutchby and Barnett, 2005, p. 151).
In social media research, the concept of affordances has been found useful in examining the
ways different types of technologies enable specific communicative practices and interaction
(Bucher and Helmond, 2017). Within this body of research, both so-called “high-level”and
“low-level”affordances of social networking sites and social media have been analysed
Affordances
for health
information
practices
507
To continue reading
Request your trial