Date: 22 November 2013
Time: 12:45 – 14:00 (sandwich lunch from 12:45pm – 13:00; seminar begins at 13:00)
Venue: Mrs Chen Yang Foo Oi Telemedicine Centre, 2/F, William MW Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

Health communication across private and public spheres: Mapping a research agenda by Professor Srikant Sarangi (Professor in Humanities and Medicine, Aalborg University, Denmark
Director, Danish Institute of Humanities and Medicine/Health (DIHMH)
Visiting Research Professor, Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, The University of Hong Kong
Formerly, Director, Health Communication Research Centre, Cardiff University, UK)

Abstract:
In the form of a scoping exercise, in this presentation I outline a future-oriented agenda in health communication research that straddles the domains of private and public health. Such an agenda-setting task necessarily involves taking stock of key research threads across these domains which have had separate and parallel life trajectories. Arguing in favour of blurring the boundaries between the private and public spheres, I engage with the challenge of establishing an integrated communication framework based on analytic traditions such as pragmatics, discourse and rhetoric. The goal is to adequately address talk, text and other semiotic modes underpinning a set of focal themes such as risk, trust, quality of life, individual responsibility etc. I selectively draw upon a number of case studies from a cline of private/public spheres as a way of elucidating the integrated communication framework.

About the Speaker:
Srikant Sarangi is Professor in Humanities and Medicine and Director of the Danish Institute of Humanities and Medicine/Health (DIHMH) at Aalborg University, Denmark. Between 1993 and 2013, he was Professor in Language and Communication and Director of the Health Communication Research Centre at Cardiff University. Currently he is also Professor in Language and Communication at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim (Norway); Visiting Research Professor, Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, The University of Hong Kong; and Visiting Professor at University of Malay. In 2012, he was awarded the title of ‘Academician’ by the Academy of Social Sciences, UK.

His research interests include: institutional and professional discourse (e.g., health, social welfare, bureaucracy, education etc.); quality of life and risk communication in genetic counselling, HIV/AIDS, telemedicine, general practice and palliative care; intercultural pragmatics; language and identity in public life; ethnicity, race and discrimination in multicultural societies. He has held several project grants (Funding bodies include The Wellcome Trust, The Leverhulme Trust, ESRC) to study various aspects of health communication, e.g., genetic counselling, HIV/AIDS and telemedicine. The other areas of healthcare research include communication in primary care, palliative care, with particular reference to assessment of consulting and communication skills.

He is author and editor of twelve books, guest-editor of five journal special issues and has published nearly two hundred book chapters and journal articles in leading journals in discourse and communication. He is the editor of Text & Talk as well as the founding editor of Communication & Medicine and with (C. N. Candlin) of Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice and three book series[es]. Over the last 15 years his visiting professorships and research attachments include a number of countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Italy, Malaysia, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and USA.

Seats are limited and are offered on a first-come-first-served basis. Please kindly let us know should you wish to attend the seminar by giving your full details through replying via email to phrc@hku.hk on or before 12:00noon of November 21, 2013 (Thursday) to facilitate event organization. Sandwiches will be provided to registered participants of the seminar.

Please click here for the Promotional Leaflet. For registration and enquiries, please contact Ms Karen Lau at 2819 9928 or via email phrc@hku.hk

* This event is held under the Public Health Research Centre (PHRC) of the University of Hong Kong.