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Bloggen over gezondheid: Een kwalitatief onderzoek naar de ervaringen van bloggers met chronische lichamelijke klachten

Haar, I. ter (2016) Bloggen over gezondheid: Een kwalitatief onderzoek naar de ervaringen van bloggers met chronische lichamelijke klachten.

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Abstract:The goal of this study is to map Dutch health blogs and to explore bloggers’ experiences. The key points are their motives, what functions they experience from blogging and in what way they integrate illness into their blogs. Where most research has been done on blogs that have illness as the only subject, this study also incorporates personal blogs that address not only illness, but other themes as well. Theories from narrative psychology suggest that this is the healthier option. Through various methods of sampling, a systematic search for blogs was conducted. After an extensive process of inclusion, the blogs were evaluated on number of followers, amount of data, the extent to which illness is addressed and the gender of the blogger. From this list, six bloggers were selected with whom semi-structured interviews were held. In total, 195 Dutch blogs were found, that could be divided into different categories. The interviews revealed that bloggers had different motives to start blogging, to write about their illness or not to write about their illness. Blogging is often experienced positively, especially its communicative function. Bloggers have several different ways of giving their illness a place on their blog. They incorporate it naturally, choose to write specifically about the illness of provide a stage to guestbloggers. There is no such thing as a typical health blog, due to the fact there are different types of bloggers. This typology is based on the extent to which a blogger addresses their illness, ranging from a blog dedicated solely to the illness to a blog where illness is rarely mentioned. Bloggers have different motives and possibly integrate their illness into their blogs in different ways. Further research is needed into the subject-matter of health blogs in order to provide more clarity.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/70683
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