ABSTRACT
The emergence of health information and health care systems online has been met with a mixed reception by academics, health agencies, ethicists and the public. Much has been made about the unique capacity for cyberspace to satisfy particular demands for health information (Ziebland et al. 2004). Claims about the potential for cyberspace to challenge the relationships between the lay public and public health experts have been tempered by more sceptical discourses presenting a now familiar argument that constructs cyberspace as potentially unreliable and, indeed, a context where misinformation easily gains credibility. Much of what is happening online continues to be framed in terms of its impact on established medical knowledge and the health care professions. In this chapter, we outline the context for some of the discussions we elaborate on throughout this text. We draw upon a range of literature that has begun to highlight the relationships between digital environments and medical expertise to give some overview of the relationship between the medicalization of cyberspace and health expertise.
