Introduction
This volume focuses in general on models in health and the forms of activity
undertaken by different entities. By now, a common agreement is shared: social
model of health is the model everyone has to refer to, especially when dealing with
health promotion, particularly around cancer or the risk of chronic diseases, or
wider other pathologies. But are we really sure to share the same content when we
say “health communication”? Many scholars assume that a lot of social actors are
intervening into this “social act”: primary school and biology teachers, journalists,
bloggers and community managers, medical staff, patients, and their relatives,
scientists, researchers – not to mention social sciences researchers! – through medias
and means of communication: TV programs, TV series, digital media, social networks,
NGO’s, pharmaceutical companies advertisings...
To make clearer the future models of health, beyond “health promotion”
standards, we follow the hypothesis that in a world where openness and sharing are
becoming central, controversial social issues could be a fruitful means.
The authors would like to contribute to improve our knowledge about
this ecosystem by crossing approaches coming from the fields of education and
communication as these both fields are participating in the public sphere and
knowledge mediation processes. It will cover a wide range of topics such as alternative
medicine, vaccinations, antibiotic resistance. Obviously, cancer and chronic diseases
are a very interesting field of investigations, but all pathologies can be used to develop
health education and communication issues.
The main areas of our interests are the following:
I. Education
Education systems are long-term evolving systems. Any reform needs time to
become active. What are the representations and competencies of the teaching staff,
future teaching staff regarding new therapeutics, contemporary medical knowledge
or health models? Can new teaching processes and their evaluation provide solutions
to health literacy?
What about news on “health-knowledge” mediations? What is their impact on
health literacy?
II. Policies
Policymakers often launch health promotion campaigns on various topics. A lot
of Non-Governmental Organizations are involved in health education as well. Are
they acting contradictory? Are they collaborating? Do NGO develop an alternative
way of thinking about health issues? How can we understand their positions? How
[4] Introduction
can we analyze resistances to the directive and normative discourses of all these
social actors? Can new policies meet the emerging health challenges?
III. Medias and on-line communications
On-line communities and social media, as well as popular TV series, movies
and on-line newspapers undoubtedly participate in the spreading of information
and somehow are an essential cog in health education and knowledge mediation
processes. Would they be right or wrong, fake or transformed? Do they describe
adequately the social health challenges? How do they need to evolve in the roles and
practices? How can we analyze and discuss social circulation of this knowledge, from
the producers to the receivers and users and backwards? What could be the evolution
of social actors’ representations and to what extend behaviors can be impacted by
these “new media”?
We try to answer these questions, but most of all, to start a discussion…
Katarzyna Potyrała