The Role of Communication in Stereotypes, Prejudices and Professional Identity: The Case of Nurses

Abstract

Nursing, conceived as a daily professional service aimed at “taking care of”, “satisfying the needs”, “the well-being of the assisted person”, has a very recent history compared to other disciplines in the field of medicine and further professional fields. Nurses have found their affirmation for a long time as well as an obvious prestige and social recognition. Over recent decades, despite the deep evolution of the nurses’ figure, the public opinion is still anchored to an image of them, heavily influenced by stereotypes and prejudices fuelled above all by mass media (and new media). Indeed, media contribute to provide a professional portrait that mostly corresponds to the old role, duties and composition of this professional category, with limited skills, working in the shadow of physicians to whom only clinical knowledge belongs. The aim of this paper is to define the portrait of this professional figure and how it is altered by means of communication and, thus, transmitted to public opinion. Adopting a qualitative methodology, using text analysis technique, we investigate and represent through images 50 articles published on web (blog, social media, specialized nursing websites) in the period 2008–2016, evidencing the main role and functions attributed to nurses still deeply affected by stereotypes and prejudices and the related professional identity.