Medical experts as health knowledge providers

A case study of nutritionists’ identity construction in ‘wemedia’

Authors

  • Xingchen Shen Nanjing University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.37686

Keywords:

public health communication, pragmatics, identity, trust, wemedia

Abstract

The rise of wemedia in China has brought challenges to public health communication(PHC), such as the change in doctor-patient relations and the vulnerabilityof trust. As few researchers have touched upon the issue of identity constructionduring PHC in Weibo, this study aims to fill this gap and investigate one health informationprovider's discursive construction of multiple identities in Weibo and itspragmatic effect on trust building. Through this study the author attempts to contributeto the existing scholarship on the dynamics of identity-relation constructionin wemedia and the pragmatic construction of trustworthiness in a PHC context.

Author Biography

  • Xingchen Shen, Nanjing University

    Xingchen Shen is a doctoral candidate at Nanjing University, China. Her research interests include interpersonal pragmatics, cognitive pragmatics and historical pragmatics.

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Published

2019-11-12

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Shen, X. (2019). Medical experts as health knowledge providers: A case study of nutritionists’ identity construction in ‘wemedia’. East Asian Pragmatics, 4(2), 263-291. https://doi.org/10.1558/eap.37686