engleski

Digital Mediation of Post-Covid Syndrome Experiences: Tales of Pain and Suffering

Recently in the media and everyday communication narrative reports and testimonies of the so-called long COVID or post-COVID syndrome started appearing. This syndrome is recorded in people with the history of severe illness, but also in those with mild symptoms. Media also report on research about the consequences of the illness. It is certain that the pandemic, even once it is over, will leave behind a large number of people with impaired health, a changed perception of self, one’s strength, life energy, possibilities, etc. Presently, this syndrome is mainly a medical “unknown”. In everyday communication it is narratively shaped into a string of personal narratives about symptoms and is described, both among medical experts and convalescents, as an “indescribable”, “surreal”, “bizarre”, “frightening” experience, an experience of long duration, unpredictable course, unknown causes, that evades language and the hitherto familiar symptomatology and descriptions of pain, weakness or suffering. The goal of this presentation is the (auto)ethnographic analysis of the language used to communicate the so-called long COVID or post- COVID syndrome, its cultural meanings reflected in the communication of patients and medical doctors, the narratological specificities of the stories relating the experience of the syndrome that causes physical and mental pain and suffering, as well as its social consequences.

COVID-19, post-COVID, pain, fear, narrative strategies, media

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