Social Media

Susannah Fox will present data about the impact of the internet on health and health care to a meeting of the HIT Policy Committee, convened by David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P., National Coordinator...

Just as in offline politics, the well-off and well-educated are especially likely to participate in online activities that mirror offline forms of engagement. But there are hints that social media may alter this pattern.

Federal agencies can, and should, be the first responders to health questions. Social media can help.

Last week, for the first time in two months, the most discussed news story on Twitter was something other than unrest in Iran. Instead, it was Twitter itself and the outage the site faced on August 6. In the blogosphere, attention was focused on an unusual lawsuit. And on YouTube, the top videos involved rising political temperatures in the dog days of summer.

Participation Powers Prevention was the theme of the National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing & Media. Susannah Fox presented the latest data on social media and health care.

As the audience for online video continues to grow, a leading edge of internet users are migrating their viewing from their computer screens to their TV screens.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, Susannah Fox, Jamie Heywood, and Esther Dyson discussed the coming revolution in health care.

The protests in Iran consumed blogs and social media last week. Web users disseminated information, organized and demonstrated solidarity with protestors. In addition to tracking the blogosphere, this week’s New Media Index takes a look at Twitter and the explosion of tweets about Iran.

Bloggers and social media were consumed with two events in the last week that triggered an online debate about political extremism—one in Europe and one in Washington D.C. And the most-viewed news video on YouTube was the start of a feud between David Letterman and Sarah Palin.

Americans' pursuit of health takes place within a widening network of both online and offline sources.