This book provides readers with the latest research on the affective
aspect of online interactions between doctors and e-patients in the
context of China from a poststructuralist discourse analysis
perspective. At the heart of this book is the presentation of four
chapters which address (1) indirect negative emotional acts by
e-patients and empathic acts by doctors (constituting "affective
practice"), (2) the interactional discursive features involved in the
affective practice, (3) discursive positions of e-patients and doctors
within the affective practice context, and (4) power relations that are
reflected in the positionings. This book sheds light on the importance
of examining the affective facet of medical consultation, when it comes
to identifying non-traditional positions and power relations in
doctor-patient communication. It also provides the implication that
e-healthcare platforms, especially those with an e-commercialized model
for healthcare services, have potential to produce a type of neo-liberal
discourse--the e-commercialized medical consultation discourse--in which
patients and caregivers, who are acknowledged as the less powerful group
in the traditional healthcare activities, are empowered and privileged.