Information on diabetes in blogs: applicability of the Analysis Model of Health News Discourse

ABSTRACT In the context of the rise of internet, communication through digital media has reconfigured the way of producing, appropriating and disseminating news and information about health. In this sense, blogs have constituted virtual spaces for the sharing of ideas and socialization of knowledge and information that allow the emergence of new problems and objects of research in communication and public health, as well as contributing to the dissemination of information, knowledge and news on health. It was observed that the health market adjusted to the biomedical model focused on technologies and in individual assistance uses this mean to disseminate health narratives. The study has a qualitative, descriptive and documentary approach to verify the applicability of the Analysis Model of Health News Discourse in blogs which released news on technological innovation in health care for Diabetes Mellitus. It is concluded that the analysis model applied to blogs have allowed us to observe that the news shared by the different media, as well as the fear of getting diabetes and the hope for its cure constitute strategies of convincing users of blogs to serve the interests of the market economy in the production of health demands and needs.