Online Forums Can Alleviate the Care Crisis

In the context of the care crisis in modern medicine, the existential needs of patients are not sufficiently satisfied. One idea to address the crisis is that physicians should be educated to be virtuous. This suggestion is inadequate because it does not take into account the role of (non-)human factors, including technologies. The paper focuses on online caring forums, arguing that they are technological factors that can play the role of “focal things”, in which the members gather together to do a care-related focal practice. We study empirically the online forums of Ninisite, a popular Persian website on pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting, and suggest that these forums shape focal practices that are helpful in alleviating the care crisis.