The Viagra Files: The Web as Anticipatory Medium1

The article introduces the research behind the making of Viagratool.org, the Lay Decision Support System on the World Wide Web. Viagratool.org is a ‘web knowledge instrument’ made to provide realities about a drug, available by searching, form-filling, online prescription, e-commerce and the post. Collaborative filtering, made famous by the disciples of Vannevar Bush, is used to ascertain information about Viagra. As we found with the aid of a group of collaborative filterers, Viagra comes across on the Web as a party drug, with distinct user groups—clubbers, sex tourists and others—not addressed by more official information providers—regulatory bodies, the medical industry or the manufacturer. Presented here are the findings that have led to two versions of the support system, one for the potential Viagra consumer, and another for the often overlooked second and third parties caught up in ‘Viagra situations’. In the first system, the collaborative filters found and kept information about its marketing (and re-selling), its serious harm in cocktail dosages, and insider accounts provided by seasoned aphrodisiac and other lifestyle drug users. The information is displayed in thought trajectories, each asking whether to consume it, from different angles. Importantly, the system is not a consumer-to-consumer information service or pure cohort support service. Rather, it allows a consumer to hear about Viagra from the marketeer, the emergency room medic, the humorist, and the user of Viagra and Viagra substitutes. Each could play a part in the Viagra decision. In the second version, we present Viagra situations, quite remote from the placid beach scenes with loving couples (on the Pfizer website), or a jogging Bob Dole, as seen on TV. Here, we move closer to employing the Web as an anticipatory medium by first resurrecting the second parties in Viagra situations, different from those in ‘normal, loving’ relationships. Finally, we call into existence third party observers, friends, onlookers, anticipating darker Viagra usage scenarios that are unavailable in the more official discourse.