Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Putting The Pieces Together: Endometriosis Blogs, Cognitive Authority, And Collaborative Information Behavior, Diane M. Neal, Pamela J. Mckenzie

FIMS Publications

Objective:

A discourse analysis was conducted of peer-written blogs about the chronic illness endometriosis to understand how bloggers present information sources and make cases for and against the authority of those sources.

Methods:

Eleven blogs that were authored by endometriosis patients and focused exclusively or primarily on the authors' experiences with endometriosis were selected. After selecting segments in which the bloggers invoked forms of knowledge and sources of evidence, the text was discursively analyzed to reveal how bloggers establish and dispute the authority of the sources they invoke.

Results:

When discussing and refuting authority, the bloggers invoked many sources of …