[LINK] Folksonomy v. Taxonomy

Sat Mar 29 16:37:36 AEDT 2008

Picked up by a privacy-list subscriber.

Its relevance to linkers is the study of the use of folksnonomy as a 
way of extracting information.

>      Medical Information on YouTube
>      Awori J. Hayanga; Heather E. Kaiser
>      JAMA 2008;299 1424-1425
>
>http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/299/12/1424-a?etoc
>Medical Information on YouTube
>
>To the Editor: In their Research Letter study, Dr Keelan and 
>colleagues1 evaluated YouTube as a source of information on 
>immunization. Previous reports have indicated an increasing use and 
>inconsistency in the quality of online sources of information about 
>vaccination.2-4 However, we are concerned that the application of a 
>formal appraisal to a freeware Web site that is unregulated, 
>uncensored, and designed more for entertainment than the 
>dissemination of evidence-based medical advice may lend false 
>gravitas to an unstructured, unvalidated online rating system as 
>well as medical credence to a conduit of popular culture.
>
>Furthermore, the authors' assignment of the content of each message 
>as either positive or negative and their consequent conclusions may 
>not be valid. By restricting the search criteria to vaccination and 
>immunization, the authors limited their findings and analysis to 
>only 153 videos mainly pertaining to childhood and human 
>papillomavirus vaccines. They concluded that half of these videos 
>were not explicitly supportive of immunization. However, inclusion 
>of the term flu shot in their search criteria would likely have 
>identified many more videos: the study was conducted during the 
>winter season, and flu shot may have been more frequently used in 
>common parlance than either immunization or vaccination. It seems 
>likely that the majority of flu shot videos would be judged as 
>positive, potentially changing the study conclusion.
>
>Finally, we believe that the recommendation that YouTube be 
>considered as a means of communication by health professionals 
>should not be endorsed without a critical evaluation of the Web 
>site's rating criteria and some uniformity of quality and content. 
>In the implementation of public health communication strategies to 
>positively affect health behavior, caution should be taken to ensure 
>that this information is useful, scientific, and conveyed from a 
>source whose veracity and accountability can be both determined and 
>ensured.
>
>Financial Disclosures: None reported.
>
>Awori J. Hayanga, MD, MRCS
>ahayanga at jhsph.edu
>
>Heather E. Kaiser, BSc
>Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
>Baltimore, Maryland
>
>1. Keelan J, Pavri-Garcia V, Tomlinson G, Wilson K. YouTube as a 
>source of information on immunization: a content analysis. JAMA. 
>2007;298(21):2482-2484. FREE FULL TEXT
>2. Wolfe RM, Sharp LK. Vaccination or immunization? the impact of 
>search terms on the internet. J Health Commun. 2005;10(6):537-551. 
>FULL TEXT | ISI | PUBMED
>3. Zimmerman RK, Wolfe RM, Fox DE; et al. Vaccine criticism on the 
>World Wide Web. J Med Internet Res. 2005;7(2):e17. PUBMED
>4. Davies P, Chapman S, Leask J. Antivaccination activists on the 
>world wide web. Arch Dis Child. 2002;87(1):22-25. FREE FULL TEXT
>
>Letters Section Editor: Robert M. Golub, MD, Senior Editor.
>
>JAMA. 2008;299(12):1424-1425.
>
>
>Medical Information on YouTube--Reply
>      Jennifer Keelan; Vera Pavri-Garcia; Kumanan Wilson
>      JAMA 2008;299 1425
>      http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/299/12/1425?etoc
>
>
>
>Medical Information on YouTube-Reply
>
>In Reply: Dr Hayanga and Ms Kaiser raise 2 concerns. First, they 
>question the conclusions of our study by suggesting that a more 
>specific keyword search using the term flu shot may give a different 
>picture of the types of messages about immunization being 
>disseminated by YouTube. Second, they doubt whether YouTube should 
>or even could be taken seriously by the medical community.
>
>Our study design and deliberate choice of keywords were based on and 
>consistent with a body of literature examining the public 
>understanding of immunization and the use of the Internet to seek 
>out health information.1-3 Since the search we conducted in February 
>2007, many more videos pertaining to immunization have been posted. 
>For example, our initial search term immunization identified 53 
>results, whereas the same term now yields 168 results, indicating 
>the increasing use of the YouTube site for communicating this type 
>of information.
>
>We doubt that parents seeking general information about immunization 
>on YouTube will begin with a specific term such as flu shot. 
>However, even if they did, moving from general attitudes toward 
>immunization to a specific vaccine would be expected to yield 
>different results because it represents a different research agenda. 
>For example, Hayanga and Kaiser suggest that the keyword flu shot 
>would yield more videos that we would classify as positive, and our 
>own analysis found videos pertaining to the influenza vaccine to be 
>primarily positive. However, if we chose other keywords such as 
>thimerosal, we would also expect a different range of opinions 
>expressed about immunization, predictably more negative as suggested 
>by our analysis.
>
>With respect to the use of YouTube to convey medical information, 
>the original design or intent of YouTube has not prevented diverse 
>interest groups from staking their claim. A belief that platforms 
>such as YouTube are inherently problematic and therefore should 
>never be used for the transmission of medical information to the 
>public does not mean that the public will not use it for this 
>purpose. Criticisms were also made of the use of the Internet in 
>general as a source of medical information.4-5 The medical community 
>has now accepted that patients will be using the Internet for this 
>purpose and has found effective mechanisms by which to disseminate 
>conventional medical information (such as Medline and MedlinePlus).6 
>YouTube is serving as one mechanism to communicate health 
>information. Ignoring it will simply facilitate its domination by 
>viewpoints discordant with evidence-based medical opinion.
>
>Financial Disclosures: None reported.
>
>Jennifer Keelan, PhD
>Department of Public Health Science
>University of Toronto
>Toronto, Ontario, Canada
>
>Vera Pavri-Garcia, PhD
>Division of Natural Science
>York University
>Toronto
>
>Kumanan Wilson, MSc, MD
>kumanan.wilson at uhn.on.ca
>Department of Medicine
>University of Toronto
>
>1. Wolfe RM, Sharp LK. Vaccination or immunization? the impact of 
>search terms on the Internet. J Health Commun. 2005;10(6):537-551. 
>FULL TEXT | ISI | PUBMED
>2. Wolfe RM, Sharp LK, Lipsky ML. Content and design attributes of 
>antivaccination Web sites. JAMA. 2002;287(24):3245-3248. FREE FULL 
>TEXT
>3. Zimmerman R, Wolfe RM, Fox DE; et al. Vaccine criticism on the 
>World Wide Web. J Med Internet Res. 2005;7(2):e17. PUBMED
>4. Silberg WM, Lundberg GD, Musacchio RA. Assessing, controlling, 
>and assuring the quality of medical information on the Internet: 
>caveant lector et viewor: let the reader and viewer beware. JAMA. 
>1997;277(15):1244-1245. FULL TEXT | ISI | PUBMED
>5. Roberts JM, Copeland KL. Clinical websites are currently 
>dangerous to health. Int J Med Inform. 2001;62(2-3):181-187. FULL 
>TEXT | ISI | PUBMED
>6. Cline RJ, Hanes KM. Consumer health information seeking on the 
>Internet: the state of the art. Health Educ Res. 2001;16(6):671-692. 
>FREE FULL TEXT
>
>Letters Section Editor: Robert M. Golub, MD, Senior Editor.
>
>JAMA. 2008;299(12):1425.

-- 
Roger Clarke                  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

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Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW