Internet Discourse and Health Debates

Applying multimodal textual analysis to the languages and images of online communication forms, Kay Richardson shows, from an applied linguistic perspective, how the Internet is being used for global, interactive communication about public health risks. Detailed case studies of the possible risks posed by SARS, by mobile phones and by the vaccination of babies against childhood diseases are situated within the context of research on computer-mediated communication, as well as within the broader social context of globalization and discourses of risk and trust.

Kay Richardson is Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics and Communication Studies at the University of Liverpool,UK. Her other books include Nuclear Reactions: A Study in Public Issue Television (co-authored with Natalie Fenton), Researching Language: Issues of Power and Method (co-authored with Deborah Cameron, Elizabeth Frazer, Penelope Harvey and Ben Rampton), Text, Discourse and Context: Representations of Poverty in Britain (co-edited with Ulrike H. Meinhof) and Worlds in Common: Television Discourses in a Changing Europe (coauthored with Ulrike H. Meinhof).