TY - JOUR
T1 - Children’s cancer narratives on YouTube
T2 - Agency and entrepreneurship in Brazilian CarecaTV
AU - Marôpo, Lidia
AU - de Carvalho, Raiana
AU - Jorge, Ana
N1 - UIDB/04647/2020
UIDP/04647/2020
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This article looks at the social and cultural contexts of children’s experiences of illness, through a particular focus on the context of the Global South and the role of the social media platform YouTube in children’s culture. It takes a socio-constructivist approach to discuss the case of CarecaTV (BaldTV), a Brazilian YouTube channel with more than one million followers created by Lorena Reginato at the age of 12 when she was recovering from brain cancer. In CarecaTV, cancer subjectivity co-exists with and is expressed through digital commercialization. On the one hand, through this process, Lorena Reginato gains agency as she offers an inspirational and credible first-person testimony about cancer during childhood and becomes an emerging cancer activist. On the other, she uses entrepreneurship strategies associated with the digital influencer model of YouTube to promote herself as a (cancer) micro-celebrity, taking the lead in a youthful and playful culture.
AB - This article looks at the social and cultural contexts of children’s experiences of illness, through a particular focus on the context of the Global South and the role of the social media platform YouTube in children’s culture. It takes a socio-constructivist approach to discuss the case of CarecaTV (BaldTV), a Brazilian YouTube channel with more than one million followers created by Lorena Reginato at the age of 12 when she was recovering from brain cancer. In CarecaTV, cancer subjectivity co-exists with and is expressed through digital commercialization. On the one hand, through this process, Lorena Reginato gains agency as she offers an inspirational and credible first-person testimony about cancer during childhood and becomes an emerging cancer activist. On the other, she uses entrepreneurship strategies associated with the digital influencer model of YouTube to promote herself as a (cancer) micro-celebrity, taking the lead in a youthful and playful culture.
KW - health
KW - influencer
KW - social media
KW - YouTuber
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85094630961&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000720392400003
U2 - 10.1177/2043610620967018
DO - 10.1177/2043610620967018
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85094630961
SN - 2043-6106
VL - 11
SP - 318
EP - 330
JO - Global Studies of Childhood
JF - Global Studies of Childhood
IS - 4
ER -
