We are happy to invite you to a meeting of the Technology in Medical Communication (TechMedCom) discussion group, which has been established to inspire its members to explore various topics related to the use of technologies for maintaining good health and supporting medical treatment. Our guest will be Ms. Klaudia Wiktorska, who will tell us about her BA research project.
“How COVID kills some people but not others”:
A discourse analysis of doctors’ YouTube videos about the coronavirus
Abstract of the talk
The COVID-19 pandemic scared and made people anxious. Therefore, they craved information that could calm them down. Consequently, YouTube videos made by doctors who aim at informing people on health-related issues have gained considerable popularity. In my research, the discourse about the pandemic presented in these videos is analysed to determine from the linguistic point of view how healthcare professionals talk about the disease. The analysis is concerned with six elements of the chosen videos: topics, titles, reliability of the doctors, addressing the audience, explaining how the virus works, and giving advice. The analysis shows that the doctors in the examined YouTube videos use certain linguistic means, such as personal pronouns, to build a positive relation with the audience. Also, it seems that the doctors adopt modal verbs and imperatives to be convincing. Furthermore, comprehensible and reliable health-related information from scientific articles as well as up-to-date statistics are presented in the videos, which raises lay audience’s awareness about the pandemic. The study proves that YouTube has a great potential to help professionals spread medical knowledge.
Please note that our meeting will be preceded by a lecture delivered by Prof. Emilia Soroko from the Faculty of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Adam Mickiewicz University.
Healing stories:
Therapeutic power of self-narratives
We encourage everyone to participate in it as well.
14 April 2023, Sala Górna
15:00–16:30 — lecture
by Prof. Emilia Soroko
16:30–17:30 — TechMedCom meeting
with Ms. Klaudia Wiktorska
