Snoring and the Internet: A Cartographic Exploration of Medicalisation

Abstract

The medicalisation of snoring has led to new industries of diagnosis, treatment, and transport regulation. Bryn Sparks’s research develops a novel mapping technique to model internet-searches about snoring to help investigate medicalisation in the digital era. Bryn’s research explores the medicalisation of snoring across multiple levels: at the micro-level of individuals in whom the internet-search influences conceptions of snoring; at the meso-level of web-sites wherein competition for attention interacts through search-engine feed-back to amplify medicalisation; and at the macro-level of the internet in terms of how the shifting conception of snoring over time reflects a dynamic pattern of medicalisation.