Communicative Biocapitalism: The Voice of the Patient in Digital Health and the Health Humanities

Communicative Biocapitalism examines the cultural, technological, economic, and rhetorical logics that shape the “voice of the patient” in digital health, arguing that digital technologies rely on assumptions that reflect dominant ideologies of health, disability, gender, and race. While late 20th- century activism targeted inequalities in health and health care, these are not the central concerns of digital health; digital health tools such as the FitBit and Apple’s HealthKit are instead marketed as neutral devices made to help users take responsibility for their health. The book treats a wide range of examples, including patient- networking websites, the Quantified Self, and online breast cancer narratives to understand how the attention economy, platform regulations, and big data logics impinge on how digital health tools configure the “voice of the patient.” This configuration has real world effects, influencing pharmaceutical development, digital tool engineering, and how the politics of illness are made invisible.