Posted by - Introduction
Throughout all of history, societal structures and cultural norms have shifted in alignment with cultural movements and greater power dynamics. However, despite the numerous empowerment movements and the cultural unrest for change, societal structures over the years have had one common thread: they make the lives of women incredibly difficult. Although it may seem as though substantial progress has been made, the difficulties that women face have become more masked than ever in today’s contemporary society. Women may no longer explicitly experience a lack of suffrage or representation, but there are still countless struggles undermined by these challenges. One way to understand the modern struggles that women face is through the lens of healthcare. Women’s healthcare is far more dynamic and complex than it should be. For example, abortion laws are constantly changing from state to state, making its accessibility not only difficult, but incredibly risky and dangerous. It is important to understand that the root of women’s healthcare challenges is the lack of educational and informational resources available to women. Even today, women’s health is severely under-researched and women lack resources to help them make more informed healthcare decisions. Although health education is no longer taught in a unisex fashion like it used to be, there still remains a large discrepancy between healthcare information available to men and to women. This paper will analyze one of the first women’s health informational web pages launched in 1995 by Johns Hopkins Medicine. It will narrow down on the 1990s, as this time period was pivotal in calling for more research and resource availability on women’s health. This webpage, titled “A Woman’s Journey,” was, and still is, one of the first examples of the integration of healthcare information and the internet, specifically for women. This paper will analyze this website through the circuit of culture, by examining its five elements: representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation. This will allow for a comprehensive understanding of how the “A Woman’s Journey” webpage communicates meaning, engages its audience, and reflects broader social and cultural changes in women’s empowerment and general representation.
- Production
“A Woman’s Journey” was launched in 1995 by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine women’s health program. It was intended as an informative webpage offering a variety of different resources for women to find health information. The site states that it provides a “selection of in person seminars, webcasts and podcasts presented by Hopkins faculty physicians,” allowing users to “hear first-hand about advances in medicine from the individuals performing the research” (A Woman’s Journey 1995). Given its content, ranging from women’s health podcasts to weekly e-newsletters, as well as its name, “A Woman’s Journey, the webpage’s intended audience is primarily women, particularly older women who may be prone to aging gender-specific disorders or diseases.
The context surrounding the dialogue around women’s research and health makes the webpage’s launch very notable and transformative in the face of women’s health. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has a commitment to promoting medicine and according to its mission statement, fosters values such as inclusion, excellence, and diversity, as seen in Figure 1 below. Its emphasis on inclusion and diversity align with the fact that this webpage was one of the first women-specific digital health resources. During the 1990s, the World Health Organization (WHO) criticized the neglect of women-specific needs in health research. WHO explained that women play active roles in shaping health policies, and they can only do so if they have access to accurate information about their health, allowing them to make informed healthcare decisions. The organization called for improved data collection, better support for women’s roles, and systemic changes such as investment in health services and resources to enhance women’s health outcomes (Doyal 1991). Guided by its stated values and mission, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was the first to develop and launch an informational website specifically for women.
Figure 1: Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Values (JHU Medicine, 2024)
- Consumption
As aforementioned, the intended audience of “A Woman’s Journey” is largely older women seeking healthcare information. In regards to consumption, “A Woman’s Journey” presents an interesting intersection of the internet and digital consumption with healthcare information and resources. Heading into the 21st century, the internet transitioned from being used to simply complement traditional health sources, to becoming one of the primary means of accessing health information. A report from the Pew Research Center revealed that 80% of U.S. internet users search online for health information, with purposes such as researching diagnoses, preparing for procedures, and seeking support (Pew Research Center, 2003). The report also explains that “wired women are also considerably more likely than wired men to have sought information on multiple health topics, so it is no surprise that they lead the way with internet health. 85% of online women have searched for at least one of the top 16 health topics, compared to 75% of men” (Pew Research Center, 2003). “A Woman’s Journey” encompassed the growing use of media as a means of healthcare information accessibility. Its being a digital resource makes its consumption more accessible and its features more diverse. The useface itself is very personalized, with options tailored to all different needs. Figure 2 below shows a list of links on the website’s landing page, with text such as “I am…” The use of the word “I” makes the website more individualized, allowing users to easily identify their specific need of consumption on the website. This accessibility allows for a wide range of consumers within its intended audience of women. For example, users can be sponsors or donors who can easily find the link to make donations. They can be users who prefer to uptake information by reading, so they have easy access to an e-newsletter subscription. Furthermore, users who prefer podcasts or videos have a variety of options, each with a brief description of the video/audio content. These features make consumption very straight forward and tailored to the individual using the website for their personalized reason.
Figure 2: A Woman;s Journey Website, 2024
The website is also made very accessible to users all over the world, as it can be translated into over 28 languages (specifically by Johns Hopkins, not by Google) and contains language assistant services for the visually impaired in all of the 29 aforementioned languages (Hopkins Medicine, 2024). This helps widen the website’s consumption beyond the scope of the just English speakers, allowing people all over the world access to the high quality resources of Johns Hopkins Medicine, such as “A Woman’s Journey.” The variety of languages and language assistance options highlight Johns Hopkins Medicines’ commitment to diversity and inclusivity. The website is inclusive of languages and disabilities, allowing for a larger user base and consequently more consumption.
- Identity
“A Woman’s Journey” embodies the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s identity by reflecting its commitment to excellence in research, education, and patient-centered care. Via its multitude of offerings for all different consumer types and its personable landing page, it exemplifies an inclusion and patient-prioritization part of its identity. Additionally, true to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s ideal of prioritizing education and advocacy, “A Woman’s Journey” provides women with resources to empower them in making informed healthcare decisions, all while addressing health disparities through community outreach. By combining world-class expertise with personalized, compassionate care, “A Woman’s Journey” exemplifies its patient-first approach, making women’s health a cornerstone of its mission to improve and advance healthcare.
“A Woman’s Journey” also provides help and comfort for women to better discover their own identities. By providing women with helpful medical information, it can help women get a better sense of their health and make a plan moving forward. For example, a woman can find out via information available on the webpage that she may be impacted by or prone to an issue down the line, such as infertility. She may consider this to be part of her identity, and may be inclined to use “A Woman’s Journey” as a means of taking action. She can use the resources available on the website to connect her to further external educational materials about her illness or to directly connect with a healthcare provider, making her feel empowered about her health.
- Representation
As one of the first available digital health resources for women, “A Woman’s Journey” represented a trailblazing effort of access to varying digital resources for women. Following the launch of the website in 1995, more and more online health resources became accessible to women. Women began to use the internet as part of their daily, health-conscious behavior, as well as to reduce the effort and costs of finding health information (Pandey, 2002). The rise of the internet as a trusted health resource made the “A Woman’s Journey” webpage a timely and transformative tool for empowering women to take control of their health with greater convenience and accessibility. A notable example is the website’s offering of the first-ever internet coverage of “A Woman’s Journey” health conference presented by Johns Hopkins Medicine. The website provided online transcripts and live coverage, making the content accessible to millions, and expanding the event’s reach beyond the 1,000 expected in-person attendees (Business Wire, 1998). This event marked a milestone in leveraging the internet to empower women with critical healthcare information.
Furthermore, “A Woman’s Journey” represents the core values and mission of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. As an educational resource for a minority group, women, the website encompasses the following mission: “diverse and inclusive, Johns Hopkins Medicine educates medical students, scientists, health care professionals and the public; conducts biomedical research; and provides patient-centered medicine to prevent, diagnose and treat human illness” (Hopkins Medicine, 2024). Its multitude of resources and personalized consumption features make it diverse, inclusive, and patient-centric amongst a plethora of users. Additionally, the website’s production contains content that is the reflection of research conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers. The website represents the countless studies and hours of research that these people have done, and prides itself on the excellence of it all. The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine is a famous brand name, so “A Woman’s Journey” represents its excellent, well-renowned reputation.
- Regulation
In regards to regulation, “A Woman’s Journey” must be monitored for accuracy of information since it serves primarily as an educational and informational resource. In general, Johns Hopkins Medicine websites must follow Johns Hopkins web standards, which vary depending on the purpose of the content and the intended audience of the website. “A Woman’s Journey” is built and maintained in coordination with the Internet Strategy Team in Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Department of Marketing & Communications (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2024).
The website also provides a notice to users that the information that they obtain from the is provided for informational purposes only, and until they speak to an accredited healthcare professional, they should not use the information provided for medical advice. The online services on the website may provide users with information or facilitate their communication with a health care provider, but there are clear warnings that the website itself is not a substitute for the professional judgment of a healthcare provider (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2024).
Finally, the website provides a notice of privacy regarding personal health information. Since users have the option to connect with health care providers directly through the website, they could be prompted to input sensitive, personal health information. Per their website, “Johns Hopkins Medicine is committed to protecting the privacy of medical information they create or obtain about their users” (Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2024).
- Conclusion: Women’s Health Looking Ahead
This analysis of the Johns Hopkins Medicine’s “A Woman’s Journey” webpage highlights a pivotal moment in the evolution of healthcare information accessibility for women. As a groundbreaking initiative launched in 1995, this digital resource not only addressed significant gaps in women’s healthcare education but also empowered women to take ownership of their health decisions. By integrating the five elements of the circuit of culture, representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation, the webpage successfully worked to help bridge the divide between healthcare expertise and accessible, patient-centered communication. It is important to note that the elements of the circuit of culture are intertwined, and codependent on each other. Looking ahead, the challenges surrounding women’s healthcare remain significant, particularly in an era where access to care and accurate information is increasingly contested. While digital resources such as “A Woman’s Journey” have revolutionized healthcare accessibility, it is of utmost importance that these online tools maintain accuracy, inclusivity, and cultural relevance going forward.
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Cultural History of the Internet 