Tic & Société (Jul 2022)
Dynamiques des échanges numériques autour d’un sujet controversé : le cas du forum Homéopathie sur le site Doctissimo
Abstract
The scientific controversy surrounding homeopathy occupies an important place online: on social networks, through comments linked to articles or on discussion forums. Our article examines interactions among participants in the Homeopathy forum of the Doctissimo health information site. The objective is to observe whether debate on a subject as controversial as homeopathy is possible on these participatory forums. Our qualitative approach is based on the method of grounded theorization; we conducted an analysis of posts published in 2017 and 2018, years when debate around the issue of delisting was particularly lively. After presenting the particularities of our subject of investigation and our corpus, we examine to what extent this discussion forum can or cannot be considered as an extension of public space, a 2.0 arena, that allows for debate among Internet users.
