This paper aims to use the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin to reveal new insights into the role and impact of social media in health-care settings.
With the help of Bakhtin’s constructs of dialogism, polyphony, heteroglossia and carnival, the power and influences of the social media phenomenon in health-care settings, are explored.
It is apparent from the in-depth analysis conducted that there is a delicate balance between the need to increase dialogue and the need to safeguard public health, in the use of social media for health-related communication. Bakhtin‘s constructs elucidate this delicate balance and highlight the need for health-care providers that use social media to find the right balance between these competing communicational priorities.
This paper advances a nascent theoretical approach to social media research. By applying Bakhtinian ideas to consumer health informatics, this paper has the potential to open a new approach to theorizing the role of social software in health-care settings. Stakeholders in digital health will find this paper useful, as it opens up dialogue to further discuss the role of social media in health care.
