The role of narratives of vicarious experience in commodification and marketisation of genetic testing in Chinese social media

Abstract

This paper uses a narrative inquiry approach to investigate how genetic testing companies draw on narratives of vicarious experience (NoVE) (Norrick, 2013) to market their services on Chinese social media. Ten stories about individuals undergoing genetic testing on two companies’ social media accounts are examined to understand the role that NoVE play in the commodification and marketisation (Fairclough, 1993; Featherstone, 2007) of genetic testing. Two types of NoVE are identified, namely, ‘compound narratives’ that combine elements of narratives of personal experience (NoPE) and NoVE, and ‘NoVE proper’ that are narratives told in the third person. In terms of the narrative structure (Labov and Waletzky, 1967), the NoVE demonstrate long Complication, short Resolution and explicit Evaluation. The paper describes the discourse and rhetorical strategies that these narratives draw on and the functions they perform in relation to the companies’ marketing agenda. The findings show that the narratives feature interplay of medical jargon and lay language, and dramatic formulations that make them more tellable and enhance their promotional value. The heteroglossic telling devices, including direct and reported speeches of lay consumers and genetic professionals make the stories more authentic and create a sense of medical validity. The NoVE represent a hybrid mix of educational, medical and promotional genres, masking promotional content within the narratives themselves. With a shift from healthcare to commodity, there is a need to take a critical approach and to raise awareness to enable potential consumers to evaluate the utility of tests for themselves. References Fairclough, N., 1993. Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: The universities. Discourse & Society 4: 133–168. Featherstone, M., 2007. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, 2nd ed. London: Sage Publications. Norrick, N.R., 2013. Narratives of vicarious experience in conversation. Language in Society 42: 385–406. Labov, W. and Waletzky, J. 1967. Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm (ed.) Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 12–44.