ArticlePLOS digital health2025
Social justice and social media: How medical schools display critical consciousness online.
Article in PLOS digital health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Academic medical institutions have a pivotal role in addressing the inequalities faced by marginalized populations, especially by promoting values of social justice on online platforms that not only reach the medical sphere, but also the broader public. Central to this transformative agenda is the framework of critical consciousness (CC), which compels individuals to develop an acute awareness of societal inequalities and power dynamics and act as agents of change against inequalities across society. To investigate if and how medical schools use X (formerly Twitter) to display CC, tweets from March 22 - June 22, 2023 from all available Canadian medical school Twitter accounts were obtained and deductively coded. First, a content analysis was performed to collate and categorize tweets related to CC, followed by a critical discourse analysis with a CC framework to examine the role of language in conveying messages about equity and medical education. Of the 3442 tweets reviewed, 554 displayed CC (16.12%). The content analysis revealed that Empowerment of Marginalized Populations was the most prominent display of CC amongst tweets (n = 286), whereas there was a paucity of messaging around Intersectionality (n = 20). The critical discourse analysis revealed that language was purposefully used to positively spotlight equity-deserving individuals (e.g., "celebrate" and "recognize") with minimal dialogue framing institutions as agents of systemic power differentials. Medical schools ultimately advocate for positive change by sharing awareness-raising content that celebrate marginalized communities. However, the step beyond surface-level awareness-raising content towards critical self-reflection that acknowledged institutions' roles in perpetuating inequities was largely limited; this represents a missed opportunity to leverage the power of social media and engage in meaningful dialogue online to build trust between the healthcare sector and the public.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.