Mediаcommunications in Medicine: On the Question of Ethical Issues

The 21st century is the century of development of IT technologies, digital services, which have radically changed the life of society. The phenomenon of media communications is actively discussed in social discourse today. At the same time, the term “media communications” is in the process of its formation. The article presents a brief excursion into the existing interpretations of this concept, and also notes that in the conditions of development of media communications, interpersonal, intercultural, public communications are expanding their boundaries. This circumstance changes the modern media landscape. Medical social networks and medical bloggers are pushing medical journalism with its ethical standards and principles to the margins of the information space, and their place is being replaced by media ethics, which has not yet received justification from the professional and scientific community. In this context, it is said that there is a need to develop media ethical standards both for editorial o ces of multimedia media and for all participants actively positioning themselves in the media environment. The article attempts to identify the main problems that arise when using media communications in the process of popularizing knowledge about human health, which the authors of the study include: lack of skills in organizing public activities in the information space among new subjects of medical communication; ethical conflicts and legal risks, arising during remote consultations “doctor-patient”; insu cient consideration of media communications in medicine in the aspect of the social, spiritual environment of a person. The article presents the concepts of “medicalization” and “mediatization”, which record the processes of transformation of medicine caused by the emergence of digital communication tools. A separate section of the article presents medical blogs and excerpts from expert interviews with medical journalists and bloggers. The purpose of the article is to characterize the level of theoretical development of such concepts as “media communications”, “media ethics”, to identify problems and ethical conflicts in the activities of participants in medical communication and to note the importance and necessity of developing interethical approaches to regulating media communications in the field of medicine and health care.