Health Communication with Chinese Migrant Workers: Dialogue as an Analytical Framework

Abstract

Invoking Kent & Taylor‘s model of dialogic public relations as an analytical framework, this study attempts to explore if communication between Chinese government health officials and migrant workers on sexuallytransmitted diseases (STDs) could be dialogic in practice, and if so, how. The results out of a survey, focusgroup meetings and interviews indicate that, first, the socially-marginalized migrant workers‘ need for dialogic communication, and the government health officials‘ willingness to apply dialogic approaches, prove to be the potentials to initiate dialogue between the two; second, the potentials seem insufficient to warrant genuine dialogue due to the functioning of several constraints. Furthermore, this study suggests possible remedies of these constraints, including growing a dialogic culture in society, reducing governmental control or interference, providing training based on dialogic principles and/or practices, and finding innovative ways of using social media to facilitate the dialogue.