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Article published In: Online Health Communication: Expert and Lay Dialogic Practices
Edited by Anna Tereszkiewicz and Magdalena Szczyrbak
[Language and Dialogue 14:2] 2024
► pp. 268–296

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Patient knowledge formation in health communities on Facebook

 | Jagiellonian University | University of Pardubice
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

This article was made Open Access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license through payment of an APC by or on behalf of the author.

Published online: 21 June 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00172.szc
Abstract
The article explains the processes involved in knowledge sharing and support giving in an open FB forum dedicated to endometriosis. It builds on the existing understanding of experiential knowledge, as well as adopts Jovchelovitch, Sandra. 2007. Knowledge in Context. Representations, Community and Culture. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar perspective on knowledge diversity and representation which views knowledge construction as an intersubjective process. The analysis looks at the what, the who, and the how of the community in question, focusing in particular on three areas: identity work (self- and other-categorisation); perspective sharing and recognition by “significant others”; and epistemic self-other positioning. The analysis determines the most common strategies of categorisation, identifies ways of constructing shared understanding, as well as reveals that the participants’ personal truths are based primarily on their embodied experience and hearsay.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1What is patient knowledge?
    • 2.2(Virtual) communities of practice and health communication
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Patient knowledge formation in an open FB forum dedicated to endometriosis
    • 4.1Dawaj wojowniczko (C’mon warrior): Self- and other-categorisation
    • 4.2Ja też (Me too): Perspective sharing and recognition by “significant others”
    • 4.3A mówili… (And they would say…): Epistemic self-other positioning
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (49)
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