This chapter analyzes how Twitter served as a knowledge translation genre during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. It uses actor-network theory to examine individual, cultural, institutional, and systemic barriers to knowledge translation during H1N1, and how Twitter may have removed or reinforced these barriers. The author conducts a discourse analysis of tweets containing #h1n1 from June 2009 to August 2010 to understand how Twitter fits within the five moments of translation in knowledge translation processes. The intended audience includes healthcare providers, researchers studying medical rhetoric, social media, health communication and knowledge translation.

1. Proposal
for Moving Genre Theory Online: The Emergence of Online Health Communication
Tracing H1N1: Twitter as an emergent knowledge translation genre
Philip Girvan, MA
National Collaborating Centres for Public Health
C/o St. Francis Xavier University
Antigonish, NS Canada B2G 1T9
pgirvan@stfx.ca
1-902-867-6131
Introduction
Knowledge translation (KT) is defined by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research
(CIHR) “as a dynamic and iterative process that includes synthesis, dissemination,
exchange and ethically-sound application of knowledge to improve the health of
Canadians, provide more effective health services and products and strengthen the health
care system”i
.
Traditional vehicles for KT in health-related disciplines include the systematic review of
literature and learning symposiums intended for audiences composed of practitioners,
educators, researchers, and policymakers. Online technologies and their emergent
genres have expanded and diversified KT’s scope and the breadth of the audience.
Whether or not the CIHR’s definition of KT can be reconciled with these changes is the
focus of this chapter.

2. Content
The chapter develops an Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) critique of the CIHR’s definition
of KT to trace individual, cultural, institutional and systemic barriers that influenced the
translation of knowledge during the H1N1 pandemic and to what degree Twitter removed
or reinforced these barriers.
Callonii
(1986) describes five distinct moments of translation (which may overlap in
practice):
1. Problematization
2. Interessement
3. Enrollment
4. Mobilization
5. Dissidence
Conducting a retrospective examination of online KT tweets containing the hashtag
#h1n1 appearing from June 11, 2009, the day the World Health Organization (WHO)
declared the H1N1 influenza virus a pandemic, to August 10, 2010, the day the WHO
declared the H1N1 influenza pandemic over, this chapter presents a discourse analysis of
hashtagged tweets to locate them within the moments of translation listed above.

3. Audience
The audience for this chapter includes physicians, other medical care providers, or
pharmaceutical companies. This chapter will also be of interest to researchers within the
fields of medical rhetoric, social media, discourse analysis, genre analysis, health
communication, health education, and knowledge translation.
About the Author
Philip Girvan is an educator and researcher. Principal areas of research include health
literacy, communities of practice, sociolinguistics, and second language acquisition.
His current research investigates rhetorical strategies used by health actors during the
planning, implementation, execution, and uptake of health literacy interventions and the
genres emerging from these strategies.
He works for the National Collaborating Centres for Public Health (NCCPH) Leads
Secretariat to provide guidance, support and oversight for the implementation of
collaborative projects and activities. This includes project and information management
of activities which support the six National Collaborating Centres (NCCs); and promotes
and improves the use of scientific and experiential knowledge to enhance the
effectiveness and efficiency of Canada’s public health system.

4. i
Canadian Institutes for Heath Research. More About Knowledge Translation at CIHR. http://www.cihr-
irsc.gc.ca/e/39033.html accessed August 29, 2010.
ii
Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St.
Brieuc Bay. Power, action and belief: a new sociology of knowledge? J. Law (ed.). London. Routedge. 196-223.