Theoretical Contributions of Interpretive and Critical Research in Health Communication

TLDR

Health communication research has advanced theoretically, with interpretive and critical perspectives increasingly shaping complex understandings of health communication. This chapter aims to describe and assess the unique contributions of interpretive and critical research to theory and practice in health communication, noting their overlap, complementarity, or antagonism with post‑positivist approaches. The authors review U.S. literature and draw on interdisciplinary, international, multi‑methodological, and cross‑cultural studies across intra‑, interpersonal, small‑group, organizational, and mass‑mediated contexts to identify and strengthen these contributions.

Abstract

Health communication researchers have made great strides in developing theoretically grounded research, resulting in more complex understandings of communication in health contexts. Integral to these developments has been the burgeoning use of interpretive and critical perspectives. Yet, we still lack a broader description and assessment of the contributions of interpretive and critical research to theory and practice in health communication. Such an assessment is important, given that the nature of these contributions differ at times from post-positivist research (in some cases overlapping, in others acting complementarily, and still others antagonistically). Thus, in this chapter, we describe the unique elements of interpretive and critical contributions in the extant literature and assess these contributions to identify ways in which they can be strengthened. Though we primarily draw on U.S. literature, this scholarship comprises interdisciplinary, international, multi-methodological, and cross-cultural research in an array of communication contexts (intra-and interpersonal, small group, organizational, mass-mediated). Thus, this chapter not only provides a comprehensive review of the ways in which interpretive/critical approaches have been utilized in health communication research across a range of global contexts and concerns; it also builds an overarching argument with regard to the contribution of interpretive and critical approaches that is germane to the study of communication in general.