Sending Love and Prayers 🙏
How themes of narratives in breast and testicular cancer social media pages enable community creation
Situation:
Task:
Action:
Cancer is a major global health concern, ranking among the leading causes of death worldwide. The shift toward public medicine has led to a decline in personalized care within traditional medical settings, prompting cancer patients to seek support on social media.
After collecting and creating a dual corpus surrounding breast and tesicular cancer comments on social media, the corpus was then fed and analysed through the platform Dovetail. Data analysis identified prevalent themes, metaphors, and frequently used emojis in discussions related to breast and testicular cancer on social media, emphasizing their role in fostering unity and identity within online cancer communities.
Utilization of emoji tagging within corpus done through the platform Dovetail
Results:
Conclusion:
The focus was to examine the uneven access to support systems for breast and testicular cancer on a social media platform. The goal of this research was to understand how patients used the platform to establish online communities, specifically exploring the role of illness narratives, common themes, and emojis in shaping language and community dynamics.
The conclusion was that language, particularly through emojis on platforms like social media platform, significantly influenced how individuals coped with and bonded over cancer diagnoses. The study highlighted the pivotal role of language in facilitating social bonds and emotional support within online cancer communities. It suggested that individuals facing testicular cancer might have benefited from increased engagement on social media to cultivate emotional connections akin to those observed in breast cancer communities.
The research proposed that healthcare providers could have gained deeper insights into the mental health of cancer patients and communicated medical information more effectively by analyzing data from social media comment sections. The essay suggested potential avenues for future research, including an examination of cancer patients' mental health through their language on social media. Ultimately, the narrative advocated for a more community-focused approach in disseminating cancer information to forge more meaningful connections with patients.