Health commodified, health communified: navigating digital consumptionscapes of well-being

Abstract

Purpose Historically, research on perceptions of health either converged upon the meanings created and proposed by specialists in the healthcare industry or focused on people who have medical conditions. This approach has failed to capture how the meanings and notions of health have been evolving as medicine extends into non-medical spheres and has left gaps in the exploration of how the meanings surrounding health and well-being are constructed, negotiated and reproduced in lay discourse. This paper aims to fill this gap in the understanding of the perceptions surrounding health by investigating consumers’ digitized visual accounts on social media. Design/methodology/approach Textual network and visual content analyses of posts extracted from Instagram are used to derive conclusions on definitions of health and well-being as perceived by healthy lay individuals. Findings Research demonstrates that digital discourse of health is clustered around four F’s, namely, food, fitness, fashion and feelings, which can be categorized with respect to their degrees of representation on a commodification/communification versus bodily/spiritual well-being map. Originality/value Our knowledge about the meanings of health as constructed and reflected by healthy lay people is very limited and even more so about how these meaning-making processes is realized through digital media. This paper contributes to theory by integrating consumers’ meaning-making literature into health perceptions, as well as investigating the role of social networks in enabling a consumptionscape of well-being. Besides a methodological contribution of using social network analysis on textual data, this paper also provides valuable insights for policy-makers, communicators and professionals of health.

Exploring the digital media ecology: insights from a study of healthy diets and climate change communication on digital and social media

“…Healthy diets was selected because food has a high profile within the wider digital health discourse [Cavusoglu and Demirbag-Kaplan, 2017]. Research is emerging to suggest that the digital discourse on healthy diets also contains a diverse range of communicators, including: industry [Pilgrim and Bohnet-Joschko, 2019;Klassen et al, 2018], health professionals, such as dieticians [Saboia et al, 2018;Helm and Jones, 2016] and those from a range of related professions including, alternative health practitioners, personal trainers, and 'culinary experts' [Chan, Drake and Vollmer, 2020;Saboia et al, 2018].…”

Health and fitness online communities and product behaviour

“…If computer-mediated communication research has already shown the impact of online social interactions on selfpresentation, relationship maintenance and social bonding in general (Ellison et al, 2007;Wellman et al, 2001), little is known about the impact of these media on health and fitness behaviours (Cavusoglu and Demirbag-Kaplan, 2017). Vaterlaus et al (2015) started investigating the connection between social media and health behaviours among young adults.…”

“…Studies on health and fitness community however, suggest the same participative links deriving from association with a health group (Vaterlaus et al, 2015). Netnographic work further indicates that online health communities exhibit feelings of shared consciousness and common identity (Cavusoglu and Demirbag-Kaplan, 2017), which may foster engagement with the group (Brodie et al, 2013). For these reasons, the following hypothesis is proposed:…”

Prevention of HIV and Other Sexually Transmissible Infections in Expatriates and Traveler Networks: Qualitative Study of Peer Interaction in an Online Forum

“…“Communification” has been described as connecting an individual to a community involving a process of meaning making through communication of symbols that can arouse strong attachments [ 75 , 76 ]. This forum exhibited features described by Baron and others as particular to online communication with stylistic and technical peculiarities contributing to the creation of a specific and unique language, credited as important in building solidarities [ 77 , 78 ].…”