July 10, 2022 • 09:30 - 09:40 | Sunday
Parallel 13 - Zhumu Conference: 602523934 : Zhumu Conference: 602523934
Parallel 13: Internet empowerment for science communication

From vaccination to operation, modern medical achievements are inseparable from technological progress. If the early intervention of technology in the diagnosis and treatment process was only limited to the doctors’ use of devices, with the  progress of smart hospitals construction in China, technology has entered every link of medical treatment. To the patients, most of their "medical treatment" progress is not seeing a doctor but dealing with self-service equipment. When China's rapidly developing information infrastructure meets the elderly who experience the "digital dilemma", we try to reflect on the current medical dilemma of the elderly patients with the paradigm of scientific and technological research, combined with the theory of STS and ANT.

This paper employs a qualitative study approach with specific pathways including fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and integrated network data analysis. We found that the intelligent terminal of smart hospitals, mostly self-service equipment, has been equipped with new media power. The power comes from the data logic, which is not understood and accepted by the elderly, therefore makes the recipients nervous and panic. Secondly, volunteers, professional accompany for medical visit and other helps during diagnosis and treatment offered by hospital employees offer social support for the elderly, also their emotional and information support partially eliminates the technical fear of elderly patients. Thirdly, the whole action of medical treatment in smart healthcare scenarios becomes a mediated intermediary action, thus presents the gap between agricultural civilization and industrial civilization. This paper then further analyzes the above findings from the perspective of social change, technological social construction and capital inference.



Authors
  • Liu Juan

    Southwest University of Political Science and Law

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