Discursive strategies of self-promotion by doctors in online medical consultations in China: an e-commercialised practice

Abstract The online mode of medical consultation has been gaining increasing popularity. Online medical consultation (OMC) in China is largely mediated through e-healthcare websites which are featured with an online evaluation system for patients and caregivers to assess OMC doctors’ service. The evaluation system facilitates an e-commercialised way for delivering healthcare services. It is of interest to study how doctors make efforts to promote themselves in the e-commercialised OMC practice, in particular how language is used to elicit positive comments and evaluations in doctors’ self-promotion. However, this, to my best knowledge, has not been studied. The present study thus examines discursive strategies for eliciting feedback by doctors who contribute to OMCs on a widely used e-healthcare website in China. By the approach of mediated discourse analysis, five strategies have been identified. These discursive strategies are discussed in relation to the disruption of stereotypical roles of doctor and patient and the influence of non-stereotypical positions on power relations between doctors and patients. This study provides a new perspective on doctor-patient relationship and serves as a starting point for further studying neoliberal medical discourse.