Chronic Illness Narratives Through Facebook

Abstract

The Internet has changed the process by which illness meanings are created and brought into the everyday lives of those who struggle with a chronic condition. More importantly the rapid rise and use of electronic groups created through social media outlets like Facebook allows for the chronic illness experience to be shaped by multiple others and also results in the formation of a new discourse and a new discursive genre. An increasingly available discursive form is that formed through or as a result of virtual space. Virtual support groups have the potential to modify how patients perceive their condition, how they manage their illness and how they communicate within the doctor-patient relationship. Social media provides people who have survived and now live with the effects of a post traumatic event such as pulmonary emboli a place to share their story, to learn from others, to relay information, to communicate with others and to be validated as patients. Given the increase in the number of patients who experience a pulmonary embolism and survive, stronger evidence about the use of social media such as Facebook and the associated virtual support groups which form around the traumatic event is needed.