VOLUME 2, NO. 1 www.nursing-informatics.com

WINTER 2005    

Nursing Informatics News

Nursing Informatics News

Infusing Nurses with Power for the 21st Century

N E W S

From the Editor

This is the newest 2005 issue of NI News - the quarterly free ezine from Nursing Informatics.com.

This publication offers articles, news, product and systems analyses, resources and dialogue on global nursing informatics issues, discoveries and theory. We will provide a comprehensive view of informatics in practice, education, research and administration.

If you would like to receive a regular copy, please go HERE to subscribe.

June Kaminski    



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The In/Visibility of Nurses
in Cyberculture

Cyberspace has emerged as a unique phenomenon of the late 20th century, one that has offered a virtual space for dyads, groups, and communities of people to interact, share and dialogue through networks of computers. Scholars of various disciplines have coined the term cyberculture to describe, probe and examine the interactions, impact and outcomes of dialogue and identity in the 'new frontier' of cyberspace.

Within this project, I am looking at the non/presence of nurses within cyberculture: as interactive participants, web site designers, educators, columnists, and writers within an online environment. I have personally noticed a dearth of all of these - nurses do not appear to be particularly visible within cyberculture. I would like to explore this subjective observation in more depth and present my discovery within a web site environment. I intend to research the presence of nurses within a number of contexts. The first will include interactive forums, bulletin boards, and email mailing lists. An eye for the type of dialogue that is created, the issues addressed, the timber of the voices that emerge will
be witnessed and described to help frame the dynamics that nurses use to form a particular cyberculture for nursing related topics. As well, stories and writing by nurses will be sought, read and digested with the intent to both reveal, link and analyze the contribution made to cyberculture by nurses as storyteller. A unique aspect of cyberspace that begs for input from experienced and knowledgeable nurses is health-related sites. I wish to examine authorship of several high traffic health sites to investigate the frequency, presence and scope of nurses as writers, experts and online teachers of reliable health care information. Other expressions of presence will also be searched for, including self employed nurse sites, personal sites, schools of nursing, nursing organizations, theory related sites and so on.

Cyberculture is an important topic to nurses who are being encouraged to become proficient in various aspects of nursing informatics. The knowledge gained from this project will assist me to ground myself in the current culture of nursing that exists in the online environment.

News continued on page 2

The full work is available online at:
http://www.nursing-informatics.com/visiblenurse.html


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© June Kaminski, RN MSN PhD St. 2000 - 2005
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