Television & New Media 2017, Vol. 18(6) 548–564 © The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1527476416680451 journals.sagepub.com/home/tvn Article Disrupt or Die: Mobile Health and Disruptive Innovation as Body Politics Marina Levina 1 Abstract This article examines mobile health as a venue for disruptive innovation. It theorizes disruption as a discursive strategy and a business model that permeates and constructs Silicon Valley. The current trend toward for-profit privatization of healthcare has been used by Silicon Valley to market and develop mobile health technological solutions to the complex socioeconomic problem of healthcare delivery. The discourse of disruption shapes the mobile health industry’s focus on individualized and personalized solutions to healthcare challenges. The article analyzes mobile health apps and their discourses as a case study through which we can begin to understand disruption’s impact on the political sphere in general and the body politic in particular. Keywords disruption, mobile health, body politic, information technology, healthcare reform, Silicon Valley Introduction In October 2014, Uber, an app-based transportation network, launched a one-day pilot program UberHEALTH. The on-demand program brought flu shots, and a nurse to administer them, directly to a customer’s home. Together with the apps Pager and Medicast, UberHEALTH is the latest entrant in the growing network of medical house calls in the United States. Both Pager and Medicast operate much like Uber—a user can use a mobile app to request a “doctor on demand.” The emphasis is on “high-quality, personal healthcare via doctor house calls, with just a tap of your phone” (Techcare 2015). The user is given physician information and a 1 University of Memphis, TN, USA Corresponding Author: Marina Levina, University of Memphis, 212 Arts and Communication Bldg., Memphis, TN 38152, USA. Email: mlevina@memphis.edu 680451TVN XX X 10.1177/1527476416680451Television & New MediaLevina research-article 2016