Webs within the web: the role of epistemic injustice in creating barriers to public legal information about rights in a digital age

Abstract Despite concerns over the ability of citizens to understand and act on their legal rights, there has been little debate about what the effective provision of public legal information about rights entails. Viewed through the lens of epistemic injustice, this article reveals the ways in which organizations with epistemic privilege can obfuscate the understanding of rights by resorting to displays of epistemic superiority and pre‐emptive smothering of testimony. The article draws on the results of a critical discourse analysis of over 250 authoritative webpages that provide information on how to complain about healthcare provision. Focusing on tone, language, vocabulary, and format, the analysis looks at the role played by political design and fragmented discursive infrastructures, the characterization of information seekers as occupying liminal spaces, the use of professional and rarefied language in pre‐emptively undermining the testimony of the laity, and the ways in which the internet and hyperlinks facilitate epistemic obfuscation.