Abstract
With the liberalization of market access, things such as health and healthcare that were once not for trading now have attained an exchange value. The technological advancement may continue facilitating such commercialization and commodification. Against the socioeconomic backdrop, this study investigates how the cause of preventing and fighting cancer is commodified by cancer websites in China. Adopting the multimodal discourse analysis approach (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001), this study identifies five strategies that cancer websites adopt in the commodification process of cancer prevention/management: 1) oversimplifying cancer prevention; 2) representing advertising discourse; 3) facilitating the use of cancer websites and their official account on social media; 4) marginalizing the discourse of cancer-related scientific knowledge; and 5) creating a sense of solidarity. The present study suggests that the commodification of cancer is to some degree problematic. This is because it emphasizes too much on personal efforts, particularly relying on the consumption of certain things, and it detracts from the importance of the socio-political responsibility for the welfare of the public.
Highlights
The Internet has become the most commonly used source of cancer information (Mayer, 2006; National Cancer Institute, 2010), due to its accessibility and ease of use (Castleton et al, 2011)
Adopting the multimodal discourse analysis approach (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001), this study identifies five strategies that cancer websites adopt in the commodification process of cancer prevention/management: 1) oversimplifying cancer prevention; 2) representing advertising discourse; 3) facilitating the use of cancer websites and their official account on social media; 4) marginalizing the discourse of cancer-related scientific knowledge; and 5) creating a sense of solidarity
The present study identifies the phenomenon of commodification of cancer prevention and management, a message conveyed through the multimodal design of the homepages of selected cancer websites
Summary
The Internet has become the most commonly used source of cancer information (Mayer, 2006; National Cancer Institute, 2010), due to its accessibility and ease of use (Castleton et al, 2011). The number of new cancer cases and deaths for all cancers in China has been increasing from 2002 to 2011 and there is still an increasing trend of cancer incidence (Chen et al, 2016) In dealing with their health, more and more Chinese people use the Internet for health and medical information seeking. To have a better understanding of the communicative value of the cancer websites in a non-western context, this paper examines the multimodal discourse on cancer websites in China by the approach of multimodal discourse analysis It aims to identify how the commodification process of cancer prevention and management is carried out through the design of different semiotic modes
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