Health communication in the digital age for Dutch health foundations

​On 4 March, the Media & Health Center provided a presentation for staff members of the Dutch health foundations about health communication in the new media landscape. Martine Bouman and Roel Lutkenhaus illustrated important changes in the media landscape and shared insights from their research about online conversations on organ donation and vaccination.
 
Online, not everybody gets to see the same information. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google study the preferences of their users and their friends in order to make a personalized selection of content. People who are skeptical about traditional health institutions and health information are often friends with other skeptics. Together, they form new 'hard-to-reach target groups' and pose a challenge to health experts: how do we break through these 'filter bubbles' and how do we communicate with target groups who mistrust us to begin with? The presentation was followed by a round table discussion about the implication for the communication policies of Dutch health organizations. Back to news overview