Presentation providing an overview of digital health and outlining a research agenda for a critical approach.

1. CRITICAL STUDIES OF DIGITAL HEALTH:
ARESEARCH AGENDA
Deborah Lupton, Department of Sociology
and Social Policy, University of Sydney

2. Web 1.0
• one-way website use, little user content
creation, landline internet connections,
desktop and laptop computers
Web 2.0
• user-created content or commentary, social
networking sites, ubiquitous computing,
mobile devices, media convergence
Web 3.0
• interconnected 'smart objects' that can
communicate with each other, producing a
single interlinked database
From Web 1.0 to Web 3.0

3. What is digital health?
• using Web 2.0 platforms -- Facebook, YouTube, Twitter,
PatientsLikeMe, online news, blogs and wikis
• now moving towards Web 3.0 – the body as ‘node in the
Internet of Things’
• mobile wireless and wearable computer technologies
• embedded sensors in technologies
• digital data collection on individuals and populations (‘big
data’)
• digitised medical records

4. What is digital health?
eHealth mHealth
Health 2.0 Medicine 2.0
digital
health

5. Digital health includes
telemedicine/telecare
public health surveillance
personalised medicine/patient engagement
health and medical platforms + websites
health promotion strategies
self-tracking (the quantified self)

6. iHealth digital blood pressure monitor

7. Health vital monitoring patch (heart rate, respiration
rate, fall detection, stress, skin temperature, activity,
calories burnt, body posture)

8. Sleep Shirt containing sensors to measure
movement for sleep apnoea detection

9. Bodymetric trackers to ‘quantify the self”

10. Google Glass used in medicine and public
health

11. critical
digital
health
science and
technology
studies
social science
of
medicine/public
health
surveillance
studies
media, cultural
and
communication
studies
the arts and
design

12. Research questions
• How do the news media cover digital health topics?
• What websites, platforms and apps are valued for health-
related information or patient support?
• What kinds of content are created and shared by lay
people via social media platforms?
• What do corporate social platforms do with this content?

13. Research questions
• In the face of techno-utopia, what are the lived
experiences of people using digital health technologies?
• Who to trust in the digital media world?

14. Research questions
• How are concepts of ‘health’ and ‘the body’ shaped
through digital technology use?
• How are healthcare providers using digital technologies?
• How are professionals in health promotion and public
health using digital technologies?

15. Research questions
• What are the political dimensions and power relations
inherent in the use of these technologies?
• How will privacy be defined and experienced in the
context of these media?
• What are the implications for how people conduct their
everyday lives and social relationships?

16. Theoretical perspectives
• The cyborg body/post-human body
• From the haptic to the optic
• Forms of surveillance: panoptic, synoptic, participatory,
uberveillance
• Data doubles

17. Theoretical perspectives
• Domesticating technologies
• Prosumption
• Technology as performative
• The sociocultural dimensions of hardware and software

18. More information
• ‘Towards a critical sociology of digital health technologies’
(blog post)
• ‘Social aspects of digital media and health care’ (Scoop.it
collection)