1. Using Emerging Technology
to Change Cultural
Understandings of Cancer:
:
How the Online Young Adult
Cancer Community
Challenges Dominant
Cancer Narratives
Kathleen Stansberry, University of Akron
kstansberry@uakron.edu
@kstansberry

2. Current Research on Health Communication
• The empowered
patient
– Patient-centered
communication
– Play an active role in
the treatment process
– Fear based messaging
most effective when
paired with a degree of
self-efficacy

3. Current Research on Public Relations

4. Who Gets to Define
Cancer?
• Charland’s theory of
rhetorical constitution
– Audiences “live inside” the
rhetoric that constructs
them
– Rhetoric is composed of
narratives
Might patients and survivors
be adjusting the rhetorical
constitution of the cancer
experience?

5. Existing Cancer
Narratives

7. Web-Based Cancer Communication

11. Discussion/Conclusions
• Young adults with cancer experiences are
dissatisfied with the existing cancer narratives
• The open nature of Web-based
communications makes it possible for young
adult cancer patients and survivors to write
their own cancer narratives
• To build relationships we must understand the
rhetoric that constitutes the cancer
experience for young adults