| Author: | Xia, Zihan |
| Title: | “Do you have these symptoms?” : communicating depression information in Chinese social media |
| Advisors: | Feng, Dezheng William (ENGL) |
| Degree: | M.A. |
| Year: | 2025 |
| Department: | Department of English and Communication |
| Pages: | 79 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Depression is an increasingly prominent mental health issue in China, with social media platforms playing a key role in shaping public understanding. This study examines how depression is represented on RedNote, a popular Chinese social media platform, using a social semiotic approach that integrates multimodal content analysis, register-based typology, intertextuality, and visual grammar. Findings reveal that depression-related content on RedNote is constructed through a blend of semiotic activities, expounding, sharing, recommending, and recreating, each realised through distinct multimodal resources. Content creators adopt multiple identities, including expert, peer, layperson, and entertainer, shifting between these roles to achieve informational, educational, relational, and promotional communicative functions. While such content can increase awareness and reduce stigma, it also risks over-diagnosing depression by labelling everyday unhappiness as a disorder, potentially encouraging self-diagnosis. The study highlights how these practices reinforce neoliberal ideologies by individualising sufferers and privatising communication. It argues for greater critical awareness among social media users regarding the recontextualisation of depression and the commercial motives behind interdiscursive identity performances. This research provides a social semiotic approach for examining mental health-related content on social media and contributes to understanding the complex interplay between discourse, social reality, and mental health in contemporary China. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8854.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 5.98 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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