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Online Discussion Forum as a Means of Peer Support

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Critical Issues for the Development of Sustainable E-health Solutions

Part of the book series: Healthcare Delivery in the Information Age ((Healthcare Delivery Inform. Age))

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Abstract

Today, information and communication technology has spread into our workplaces and living surroundings. In other words, the development of pervasive and ubiquitous Internet enables people to connect to services in places it was not possible a few years ago. This paper analyses and discusses social media as a means of peer support in www-based discussion forums that enable newspaper readers express their opinions and arguments in the media. At the time of swine flu approaching the country, we examined how the readers discussed the intriguing topic. During the study period, altogether 1,361 comments were given. The results reveal that people want to be heard or read and that they also seem to be eager to comfort each other.

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Acknowledgements

All those totally anonymous correspondents who openly posted their comments into the online discussion forum are acknowledged. The earlier version of this article was presented in the 3rd International Conference on Well-being in the Information Society and the fruitful comments of those present are warmly thanked.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Processing Science, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    R. Halonen

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  1. R. Halonen
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Correspondence to R. Halonen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. RMIT University, School of Business Information Technolog, Melbourne VIC, Australia

    Nilmini Wickramasinghe

  2. Coventry University, Health Design and Technology Institute (, COVENTRY West Midlands, United Kingdom

    Rajeev Bali

  3. Dept. Management, Turku School of Economics & Business Administration, Turku, Finland

    Reima Suomi

  4. Lehrst. Wirtschaftsinformatik II (510 O), Universität Hohenheim Fak. Wirtschafts-/Sozialwissenschaften, Stuttgart, Germany

    Stefan Kirn

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Halonen, R. (2012). Online Discussion Forum as a Means of Peer Support. In: Wickramasinghe, N., Bali, R., Suomi, R., Kirn, S. (eds) Critical Issues for the Development of Sustainable E-health Solutions. Healthcare Delivery in the Information Age. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1536-7_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1536-7_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-1535-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-1536-7

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