To Inform or to Influence? The Conflict Between the Dual Roles of Medical Influencer’s : A multimodal analysis of the medical influencer Dr. Tracy´s TikTok content

TikTok is today a central platform for the dissemination of information as well as for entertainment. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a wave of medical misinformation emerged on social media, leading physician to begin using platforms such as TikTok to share medical information and counteract false claims. In TikTok content, physician appear not only as professional experts but also as influencers. The combination of these two roles can be viewed as a potential conflict of interest between the desire to educate the public and the ambition to build a profit-making personal brand. Using a multimodal text analysis, this study aims to examine how medical information is presented on TikTok and to highlight protentional conflicts that arise between medical communication and the commercial context of social media. Tracy Ghattas, better known as Dr. Tracy, is one of Sweden’s most well-known physician on TikTok. With Dr. Tracy’s content as point of departure, this study examines how medical information is presented through various semiotic resources and arguments, and how these representations relate to Dr. Tracy’s legitimacy as a physician and as an influencer. The study shows that Dr. Tracy does use different semiotic resources to communicate her message on TikTok. Through these, she can be perceived as both serious and authoritative, as well as approachable and relatable. Dr. Tracy moves between the medical field and the social-media-field and therefore needs to adapt to the doxa of each respective field. The analysis, based on interpretations of Bourdieu’s field theory, shows that she possesses high levels of capital in both fields, suggesting that she can reconcile her dual roles as an established physician and an influencer. Her title as a licensed specialist in general medicine is the primary element legitimizing her role as a physician, while her engaging style of speech and large number of followers indicate her legitimacy as an influencer. However, conflicts may arise from operating in two different fields simultaneously. The analysis reveals that Dr. Tracy engages in sponsored collaborations, which is a common practice within the social-media-field but is regarded as more problematic within the medical field. Based on the answers to the research questions, the study concludes with an in-depth discussion about three themes: Dr. Tracys strategy for navigating between the medical and social-media-fields; the relationship between her profit-driven business and her role as a physician; and a reflection on the possible emergence of a new doxa.