Putting the pieces together: endometriosis blogs, cognitive authority, and collaborative information behavior

Diane M Neal, Diane Rasmussen Pennington, Pamela J McKenzie
Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA · 2011 · vol. 99(2) , pp. 127–134 · doi:10.3163/1536-5050.99.2.004 · PMID:21464850 · PMC3066582 · W2153714946
article OA: diamond CC0 ⤵ 22 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

This study analyzed endometriosis blogs, revealing how patients invoke and dispute various evidence sources, including experiential and biomedical, to establish cognitive and affective authority.

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Abstract

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 evidence, including experiential, peer-provided, biomedical, and intuitive ones. Additionally, they made and disputed claims of cognitive authority via two interpretive repertoires: a concern about the role and interests of the pharmaceutical industry and an understanding of endometriosis as extremely idiosyncratic. Affective authority of information sources was also identified, which presented as social context, situational similarity, or aesthetic or spiritual factors. CONCLUSIONS: Endometriosis patients may find informational value in blogs, especially for affective support and epistemic experience. Traditional notions of authority might need to be revised for the online environment. Guidelines for evaluating the authority of consumer health information, informed by established readers' advisory practices, are suggested.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Blogging Blogging Endometriosis Patient Education as Topic Patient Education as Topic Chronic Disease Consumer Health Information Female Humans Information Seeking Behavior

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (50)

Cited by (22)

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