Virtual Methods

36 • Joëlle Kivits
communication: the interview rapport based on email exchanges and the temporal
dimension of the interview interaction.
Researching Information Seekers in Healthcare: A Case for
Interviewing by Email
Email interviews were conducted in the context of a research project focusing on
the increasing use of the Internet in healthcare. More specifically, at the core of the
study was the interest to recognize the use of the Internet as a health information
source, used by a lay, non-medical public. First, it was intended to understand the
significance of being informed about one’s everyday health, by proposing a theoretical
framework for an ‘informed health’ experience. Second, the research concentrated
on the Internet as a mediated information environment and evaluated its
role as an ‘information tool’ in individuals’ management of personal health. The
collection of qualitative data through interviewing was aimed at researching both
dimensions and at interrogating the two facets of online health information seekers
as they simultaneously enact the role of health-minded individuals and savvy
Internet users. From the outset, interviewing was considered the most appropriate
method to address the research question. The decision to undertake interviews by
email rather than face-to-face arose from the difficulty in accessing the targeted
individuals outside their online activity settings.
The existence of an Internet population active in searching for health information
on the World Wide Web is now widely recognized (Eaton 2002; Fox and
Fallows 2003). Alongside quantitative insights on the continually increasing
number of health seekers, e-patients or cyberchondriacs (Harris Interactive 2003),
qualitative approaches also examine the phenomenon, outlining the information
and support platform in healthcare that the Internet has become in the Western
world (Hardey 1999, 2002; Burrows et al. 2000; Akrich and Méadel 2002; Orgad
2004). The online health information seeker, however, has an ambiguous status.
The Internet attracts information seekers of varying profiles that go beyond the
definition of a patient (Ferguson 2002). An intriguing aspect is the fact that seekers
of information about health and illness are generally revealed to be in good health.
First, carers searching for health information for family members or friends form
an important part of the healthy information seeker population (Ferguson 2002;
Fox and Rainie 2002). Along with carers, a significant proportion of information
seekers is also concerned with a general interest in, or an orientation towards, the
aim of keeping fit and healthy (Nicholas et al. 2001). The interest of the study was
precisely to reach this group of Internet users to be defined primarily as health
information seekers independently of their health/illness status.
Access to this population was challenging in two ways: first, its diverse
and mobile profile makes it awkward to draw a single picture of who is a health