This week's readings were fascinating and specially Dennis Mumby's "Power and politics" as he laid down the relationships between power, communication and organization and traced the different perspectives on communication and organizational power. Applying to a health communication scenario there are many areas where it raises questions - a doctor-patient scenario, a health care organization (say a HMO), power relationship in a family where the mother-in-law or father-in-law or husband takes a health decision for the woman, power in the vulnerable populations searching for a better health, in typically "powerless" populations like migrant workers, foreign students, mestiza; people who live in borders, who defy classification and any classification would be an exercise in power. A critical question to engage with here is whether power inheres in the institutions, situations or in the individuals that manage the institutions (Foucalt) and if power can possibl...
Questions that Challenge, Voices that Change