New Trends in Health Communication: Entanglements between Social Media, TV Series, Psychology, and Mental Health

Abstract

In recent years, significant changes have occurred in health communication. New challenges and opportunities have emerged, such as the need to provide timely information without creating a news overload, healthcare professionals becoming players in health communication by introducing new strategies and hybridizing media languages for medical and scientific dissemination, and user-generated content produced by patients on social media leading to the destigmatization of some diseases. The goal of this chapter is to understand these changes through a socio-technical approach that studies the mutual connections between health communication, institutions, the media, communicators, and the social context. Through the analysis of a case study, chosen for its significance, the entanglements between TV series, social media, and psychology are shown. The main results point out that health communication is a multidimensional process in which there are many overlaps between disciplines. TV series can be successfully used in psychotherapy and can be a significant starting point for scientific dissemination on social media because they help to create relevant and understandable messages. The rise of health communicators has also highlighted the need to elaborate deontological guidelines for communication. This chapter contributes to the field by adopting an original approach to health communication that considers its multidimensionality and current trends.