Melissa Roy- PhD Social Work
- Professor at University of Quebec in Montreal
Melissa Roy
- PhD Social Work
- Professor at University of Quebec in Montreal
Narratives constructed on social problems labelled as 'crises'; Conflicts of expertise; Figures of expertise; Othering.
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37
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Introduction
Working at the intersections of social work, health sociology, and sociology of expertise, I study regimes of truth and ignorance especially prominent during situations labelled as "crises".
I write about: 1) narratives and stories that invest meanings in social problems labelled as "crises"; 2) regimes of knowledge/expertise, and new forms and new figures of expertise; 3) othering and otherness figures; 4) the renewal of social work theories and theorization during social/sanitary crises.
Current institution
Publications
Publications (37)
Objectifs : Cette recherche s’intéresse au processus d’héroïsation lors d’épidémies. Elle analyse l’évolution de la représentation médiatique du Dr Arruda, ancien directeur national de santé publique au Québec, pendant la pandémie de la COVID-19, afin d’identifier le type de porte-parole valorisé et dévalorisé à différents moments de l’éclosion. Mé...
Des études sur l’altérisation en période d’épidémie montrent une instrumentalisation récurrente d’éclosions de maladies pour reproduire des exclusions raciales. Inspiré par les études du nouveau racisme et appuyé sur l’outil conceptuel du « racisme limite », cet article s’attarde à la normativité argumentative de cette exclusion raciale, en analysa...
Today, in the age of the internet, during recent epidemics such as H1N1, Ebola and Covid-19, it is striking to see how old accusatory scripts are circulated and perpetuated via social media, which serve as new channels for discrimination and blame directed at traditional figures who have been scapegoated at different moments in the history of Europ...
Objectifs : Cette recherche s’intéresse au processus d’héroïsation lors d’épidémies. Elle analyse l’évolution de la représentation médiatique du Dr Arruda, ancien directeur national de santé publique au Québec, pendant la pandémie de la COVID-19, afin d’identifier le type de porte-parole valorisé et dévalorisé à différents moments de l’éclosion. Mé...
During the month-long “Freedom Convoy” protest in Ottawa (Canada), protesters were ascribed many attributes (violent, extremist, hateful, disinformed) which they refuted. Protest organizers insisted the Freedom Convoy was peaceful, loving, and included “average Canadian citizens fighting for freedom”. This research is interested in the construction...
This article addresses social work’s singular conceptual and analytical contribution to the field of epidemics. A systematic literature review was conducted to analyze how social work studies overlap to construct epidemic narratives. The author collected 601 articles from the Social Services Abstracts database and carried out a targeted search with...
This research is interested in the ways the media ‘holds together’ science, history, and culture in the coverage of a new and frightening disease outbreak. Building on previous studies, which have shown that meanings given to an epidemic take shape within pre-existing geographies of hope and blame, and drawing upon Douglas’ understanding of risk an...
Professional sport is a central element of our daily entertainment that contributes to shaping us individually and bonding us collectively: it provides us with shared ‘historic’ moments. This article is interested in these moments, and how the field of sports generates them, by asking the following questions: (1) has the frequency of ‘historic mome...
Professional sport is a central element of our daily entertainment that contributes to shaping us individually and bonding us collectively: it provides us with shared ‘historic’ moments. This article is interested in these moments, and how the field of sports generates them, by asking the following questions: (1) has the frequency of ‘historic mome...
Using the 2022 Freedom Convoy in Canada as a case study, this article explores divisions between public understanding of resistance to health measures during epidemics and oppositional movements’ self-representations. It derives from a comparative analysis of five mainstream Canadian media (n = 516 publications) and of the Freedom Convoy’s Facebook...
Mental health categories can circulate in societies regardless of whether they are recognized by medical professionals. This article asks why some labels are adopted en masse to commonly characterize some forms of distress, while other labels remain confined to specialist spheres. Contrasting with many examples of medicalization, “sex addiction” of...
The global rise of populism and concomitant polarizations across disenfranchised and marginalized groups has been magnified by so-called echo chambers, and a major public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic has only served to fuel these intergroup tensions. Media institutions disseminating information on ways to prevent the propagation of the...
Les éclosions de maladies étant souvent perçues comme le produit de choix et d’erreurs des humains, la construction de l’altérité est une tendance récurrente lors d’épidémies. Cette thèse doctorale a analysé deux types de figures d’altérité qui émergent: les héros et les coupables. Des recherches antérieures montrent qu’un individu ou un groupe n’e...
Les discours accusatoires sont une dynamique récurrente dans l’histoire des épidémies. Si les études sur le sujet ont tendance à recenser des figures du blâme et montrer en quoi leur accusation renforce des enjeux sociaux préexistants, cette recherche ajoute une perspective complémentaire à ce corpus d’écrits en analysant le travail rhétorique de l...
The perception of epidemic risk has been associated with the production of narratives in which figures such as villains and heroes emerge. This article critically analyzes social media users’ construction of heroic figures during the 2013–2016 Ebola epidemic. We used international Twitter and Facebook comments as our raw material, collected by key...
Le présent article s’appuie sur le concept de « récit » pour analyser les principaux cadres médiatisés qui investissent des significations de la crise des opioïdes au Canada. Un échantillon de 400 articles publiés entre 2015 et 2018 a été soumis à une analyse de la rhétorique des cadres. Ce faisant, quatre cadres médiatisés furent soulevés : prohib...
During global health crises, different narratives regarding infectious disease epidemics circulate in traditional media (e.g. news agencies, television channels) and social media. Our study investigated the narratives related to sexual transmission of Zika virus that circulated on Twitter during a public health emergency and analyzed the relationsh...
This study aimed to analyze main groups accused on social media of causing or spreading the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. In this analysis, blame is construed as a vehicle of meaning through which the lay public makes sense of an epidemic, and through which certain classes of people become “figures of blame”. Data was collected from Twit...
The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is giving rise to worldwide anxieties, rumours, and online misinformation. But it offers an opportunity to put into practice some lessons learned in studies of social media during epidemics, particularly with respect to the dynamics of online heroisation and blame.
This study analyzes comments from two major social media, Facebook and Twitter, regarding the controversial cancellation of the 2015 African Cup of Nations (CAN) in Morocco and its transfer to Equatorial Guinea, a move precipitated by the contemporaneous outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa. Using frame analysis methodology (frames being the central i...
Cette étude explore, à partir d’un cadre théorique foucaldien, le rapport à l’authenticité chez les individus ayant des problèmes de santé mentale « sévères et persistants », via l’analyse des actes de vérité qu’ils émettent sur leurs expériences d’autogestion. Les résultats indiquent que l’authenticité est conçue comme l’amas de six marqueurs onto...
Since its initial publication, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has been the object of criticism which has led to regular revisions by the American Psychiatric Association. This article analyses the debates that surrounded the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Building on th...
This communication will reflect on power dynamics in social media, by analyzing online conversations on the topic of Ebola heroes. Traditionally, social media has been used by public and global health authorities in a unidirectional way: they propagate knowledge, but infrequently consider the lay public’s reception of this information and their und...
This communication aims to analyze the tensions between national and global health authorities during the recent (2014-2016) Ebola outbreak, from the lay public’s perspective. To do so, we will explore the main target of blame in social media conversations. We will use this accusatory discourse to explore which health authorities the lay public ini...
Previous research in sociology has shown that what is considered as sanity or mental health is described according to a social ideal. Mental health problems have been theorized as a deviance from such norms. Depression, in particular, has been the object of sociological contemplation due to its divergence from a Western social normativity focused o...
Previous research in sociology has shown that what is considered as sanity or mental health is described according to a social ideal. Mental health problems have theorized as a deviance from such norms. Depression, in particular, has been the object of sociological contemplation, regarding its divergence from a Western social normativity focused on...
Cet article propose une lecture critique du paradigme de rétablissement en santé mentale dans le champ du travail social, en analysant les conduites éthiques quotidiennes associées à ce concept. Nous avons effectué une revue de littérature d’articles scientifiques publiés en travail social dans deux bases de données et six journaux, à partir de laq...
http://sw.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/11/09/sw.sww071.full.pdf+html
Cette conférence s’est intéressée aux façons par lesquelles la « gestion de soi » s’ancre dans une forme de normalisation, contribue à la prise en charge contemporaine de la santé mentale et participe à la production du sujet. Une analyse qualitative d’entrevues semi-dirigées effectuées auprès de personnes ayant un problème de santé mentale et viva...
Cette conférence s’est intéressée aux façons par lesquelles la « gestion de soi » s’ancre dans une forme de normalisation, contribue à la prise en charge contemporaine de la santé mentale et participe à la production du sujet. Une analyse qualitative d’entrevues semi-dirigées effectuées auprès de personnes ayant un problème de santé mentale et viva...
Considérant l'augmentation des soins offerts en milieu communautaire, la démocratisation de la question de la santé mentale et la normativité sociale contemporaine axée, en outre, sur l'autonomie, l'initiative personnelle et la responsabilité individuelle, cette présentation a exploréla façon dont le gouvernement de soi régule le comportement de pe...
Considérant l’augmentation des soins offerts en milieu communautaire, la démocratisation de la question de la santé mentale et la normativité sociale contemporaine axée, en outre, sur l’autonomie, l’initiative personnelle et la responsabilité individuelle, cette présentation a exploré la façon dont le gouvernement de soi régule le comportement de p...
