Date of Publication
2-24-2022
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Communication Major in Applied Media Studies
Subject Categories
Film and Media Studies
College
College of Liberal Arts
Department/Unit
Communication
Thesis Advisor
Jan Michael Alexandre C. Bernadas
Defense Panel Chair
Jason Vincent A. Cabañes
Defense Panel Member
Miguel Q. Rapatan
Cheryll Ruth R. Soriano
Abstract/Summary
Recent work on health and disease-specific Facebook groups focus on pros and cons, but not often understood is how members develop new knowledge through their interactions. This thesis presents how a private Facebook group for cardiovascular disease (CVD) is used by Filipino patients and family caregivers as a Community of Practice for coping with illness by determining the digital coping activities they learned from and with each other and how these activities are put into practice by combining theoretical insights of the Digital Coping Model and Community of Practice. Drawing on in-depth and semi-structured interviews from participants, this thesis found that delaying medical care exacerbates distresses, group chats’ affordances motivate openness in sharing, praying encourages better management of illness, and “knowing otherwise” sustains the group. Taken together, results provide a nuanced understanding of how a Facebook group can help its members cope with illness by generating new knowledge from members’ collective experience. This thesis shows how sustained value can be built by developing practices from accumulated experiences which in turn establish a common baseline of experiential/lay-knowledge. A health-themed podcast was created to summarize participants’ experiences in coping with illness and ways to improve them.
Abstract Format
html
Language
English
Format
Electronic
Physical Description
118 leaves
Keywords
Social media; Communication in medicine; Cardiovascular system—Diseases; Communities of practice; Online chat groups
Recommended Citation
Parrocha, A. N. (2022). ‘Aorta tell you’: Exploring a facebook group for heart disease and its potential to generate knowledge from collective experience. Retrieved from https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_comm/3
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Embargo Period
2-23-2022
