R1 - First Stage Researcher

Cycle: XXXVI

PhD student: Fabrizio Meloni

Role: R1 - First Stage Researcher

Supervisor: Prof. Elisabetta Gola

Type of grant:

Project title:

Thesis title: “Communicating health in public institutions: potential of rhetorical strategies between emotions, persuasion, and ethics”

Thesis' abstract

Public communication is essential for citizens to have a better and more useful relationship with those who provide public services. Health is no exception: indeed, the relationship between health institutions, healthcare professionals on the one hand, and patients (and their families) on the other, contributes significantly to the positive progress of care processes. This was already believed by the ancient Greeks. For example, consider the decisive function of speech that Homer tells us in the Iliad: Eurypylus, struck by an arrow and bleeding, asks Patroclus for help, who responds: "... I will not leave you, so suffering," and then cures him. Patroclus, in short, does not only perform the technical act of healing, but speaks to Eurypylus "as a man, a person who suffers" (Merini, 1993). Patroclus speaks with his patient, takes on the suffering and anguish of his companion, and by doing so, alleviates his pains, making them bearable. The means he uses to do all this is language. As Homer testifies, the medical act is also and above all an act of communication through which this operation, namely taking charge and reassurance, can take place. Communication is, at the same time, the words of Patroclus and his actions: the words "I will not leave you so suffering" and the act of holding the wounded hero to his chest, supporting him physically, and leading him to his tent to cure him.

For a long time, it has been recognized that the medical act is also - but we could say, above all - an act of communication (Ghinelli, 2009). Emotions and trust are not at all secondary in the communication process because they play a determining role in language and argumentation (Ervas F., Rossi M.G., Gola E., 2015).

Starting from here, the research investigates how emotions are fundamental in public and health communication. To do this, theories of communication and argumentation are examined, but the relationship with emotions, the role of social media, and the language to be used to create a strong relationship between healthcare professionals and citizens, which enhances the medical act in a strict sense and strengthens trust in structures and the healthcare system, are particularly explored.

The innovative element in the field of communication in healthcare is the in-depth study of the role of the emotional sphere and the investigation of how this can (and should) influence the improvement of therapy, care processes, and more generally in the relationship between healthcare institutions and users, including public communication managed through traditional media and especially digital media, such as social networks (Boccia Artieri, 2012 and 2019).

The issue is addressed from both a theoretical and empirical point of view, as it presents critical points that make it controversial. Besides clarifying what is meant by emotions when talking about communication in healthcare, an area at the crossroads between scientific communication, pedagogical communication, psychology, but also linguistics, philosophy of mind, and sociology of communication processes, the ethical problem related to the boundary between truth, seduction, and deception is underlying the use of emotions in communication. The clear division found in philosophy since Plato, where emotions have an intrinsically irrational nature, leads us to think of emotions as opposed to reasoning, but also to truth, as emotional reactions can cloud our evaluative capacity and counteract cognitive processes based on a logical-formal rationality.