Health Communication in the Time of Ebola: A Culture-Centered Interrogation

Abstract

This brief essay is a commentary on how critical health communication theory can contribute to an understanding of the cultural dynamics of infectious disease pandemics. In particular, we focus on a specific trajectory of health communication theorizing-the culture-centered approach-and its heuristic and pragmatic utility in enhancing knowledge about public health crises like infectious disease outbreaks. In the backdrop of the mobilizations against the 2014 Ebola virus disease epidemic in the 3 West African nations of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, indigenous cultural practices were construed as pathogenic and local agency of affected communities disregarded, even as the global risks of the epidemic were highlighted. In contrast to this interventionist notion of culture, the culture-centered approach offers a heuristic rubric through which to scrutinize the dialectical interrelationship between indigenous cultural practices, structural determinants of health, and the everyday agency of individuals of affected communities. We argue that such a listening-based paradigm of communication theorizing is instrumental in developing authentic, ethical, and effective health communication practice in public health crises.

Responding to the pandemic as a family unit: social impacts of COVID-19 on rural migrants in China and their coping strategies

“…Moreover, marginalized people commonly have difficulty in applying for governmental loans because governmental disaster recovery programs tend to reject applicants who have low incomes and low credit ratings (Masozera et al, 2007). Additionally, during the spread of disastrous epidemics, marginalized people tend to be less aware of the channels through which they can seek assistance and their needs are often ignored (Sastry and Dutta, 2017).…”

Ebola and Localized Blame on Social Media: Analysis of Twitter and Facebook Conversations During the 2014–2015 Ebola Epidemic

“…While important, current studies forgo the qualitative meaning invested in the outbreak by the users. We argue that public health authorities should carry out research on social media users' understanding of epidemics, in order to improve the design and calibration of communication strategies to their targeted audiences (Sastry and Dutta 2017). Thus, in this paper, we aim to contribute to current literature on Ebola and social media by analyzing the attribution and evolving dynamics of online blame, which we conceptualize as a specific part in the process of sense-making of the outbreak.…”

Community Engagement and the Communication Response to Ebola

“…Figueroa (2017) describes a transtheoretical social ecological model of communication and behavior that linked theories at individual, community, organizational, policy, and systems levels to frame localized research questions, begin to model behavioral response and identify potential communication strategies. Sastry and Dutta (2017) provide an analysis of the use of culturecentered, critical health communication theory to question prevailing assumptions, draw attention to neglected voices, and interrogate the relationships between indigenous culture and structural forces that may constrain the development of locally authentic and effective practices.…”