Dynamic power relations in online medical consultation in China: Disrupting traditional roles through discursive positioning

Abstract

This study explores an under-researched area in the literature on doctor–patient power relations. It examines power relations between doctors and e-patients in online medical consultations (OMC) in the Chinese context from the perspective of poststructuralist discourse analysis. By adopting the approach of positioning theory, this study identified three types of power relations that emerged in discursive positionings by doctors and e-patients. These relations include the negotiation of expert power, the softening of doctors’ institutional power, and the foregrounding of e-patients’ reward power. The findings challenge the assumption that doctors are always the powerful party in medical consultations because of their expertise. These findings imply that the online mode of medical consultation has the potential to cultivate doctor–patient relations that disrupt the traditional powerful–powerless hierarchical relationship between doctors and patients.