Exploring people’s online experiences of the teeth whitening industry using a web-specific mapping technique

Objectives: To explore the utility of web epistemology in dental research, illustrated using ‘Issuecrawler’ to unravel the actors in the teeth whitening industry.

Background
Online interactions supplement, or create more ‘real’ interactions. Dentists, dental regulatory and union organisations, industrial partners, the public sector, the media employ web practices such as social media and websites to reach people and promote teeth whitening online. However, search engines are epistemological devices that algorithmically index, cache and order data. Hyperlink patterns form part of the algorithms for ranking search results. Organisations are cognizant of these algorithms and use search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques to elevate their search engine rankings to influence people’s behaviours. To capture these distinct web cultural dynamics, it is proposed that web-based research considers medium-specific techniques such as ‘Issuecrawler’ that will reflect people’s web searching experiences.



Methods: Preliminary analysis using Issuecrawler, a web-specific tool that performs hyperlink analysis was used to explore the relevant actors in the teeth whitening industry. The inductively identified actors’ websites including the GDC, BDA and beauty magazines were crawled for hyperlinks to observe if actors interact with one another using ‘social network analysis’ and ‘co-link analysis’. The technique created a graphical network revealing the relevant actors in the teeth whitening network.
Results: The dominant actors included in the Issuecrawler teeth-whitening network were women’s magazines, fashion magazines, sports magazines as well as the dental institutions. The BDA, GDC, DoH, BACD were also included in the network.

The online teeth whitening network was larger than anticipated and also included unpredicted actors such home magazines.
Conclusions: Dental research can ground claims about culture within online dynamics. Due to the web’s distinct nature, the medium-specific techniques used in this study revealed unexpected interactions between the beauty, dental and domestic fields in relation to tooth whitening. Web-specific approaches may therefore allow us to explore the dynamics operating behind people’s online experiences.