Global nursing as visualised on the internet: a netnographic analysis of the emerging global paradigm in nursing

Abstract

Background: Positioned to face increasing issues relating to the growing and aging population, ill health, climate change, natural disasters, and humanitarian crises, nurses play a crucial role in responding to the challenges of globalisation. With nurses rising to meet these challenges, the term ‘global nursing’ has been coined. Given the ongoing proliferation of the term, it seems relevant to explore the key relationship of the concepts of ‘global’ and ‘nursing’ within the milieus provided through the internet.Aim: To describe how global nursing as a concept is visualised in images on the internet.Method: A cross-sectional observational design based on netnographic methodology was conducted. By searching the term ‘global nursing’ in the Google search engine, a total of 973 images illustrating ‘global nursing’ were collected and stored on one specific search occasion. The inclusion of data covered all regions but no other search limits.Results: The results show that global nursing, first and foremost, is visualised as an academic discourse, as a nursing activity, and as an approach to target sustainability. Further, the results also highlight that global nursing has manifested as a Western discourse, targeting students with access to resources and a humanitarian interest.Conclusion: By paying attention to global nursing as it is presented in this study, it has been possible to provide valuable insights about colonial boundaries in the nursing discourse relating to globality. Based on these results, we stress that the nursing paradigm would benefit from a greater postcolonial awareness and some reflexivity connected with the global issues that nurses are facing.Impact statement: Global nursing is paradoxically visualised as something distant, connected to ideas of ‘otherness’, and of not belonging to the Western nursing community.