Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Media, Culture, Technology, and Policy on Global Health Narratives and Communication Dynamics

Global health communication has increasingly shifted from being primarily driven by biomedical and state-centered systems to a complex, digitally mediated field shaped by media platforms, cultural meanings, technological infrastructures, and policy regimes. In today’s interconnected communication ecologies, health narratives are constructed, circulated, and contested through social media, algorithmic systems, and transnational information flows that influence public understanding of risk, trust, and scientific authority (Alshahrani, 2026). The COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine diplomacy debates, and the expansion of AI-driven health communication have further highlighted how health knowledge is embedded in political, cultural, and technological power relations. This transformation has expanded opportunities for engagement while also intensifying misinformation, epistemic inequalities, and digital exclusion, particularly between the Global North and South. Consequently, interdisciplinary approaches integrating media studies, public health, sociology, and policy analysis are essential for understanding how global health realities are produced, negotiated, and governed in contemporary digitally networked societies.The goal of this Research Topic is to rethink global health communication in an increasingly digital, networked, and politically contested world where health realities are no longer shaped solely by biomedical institutions or state-driven public health systems, but are co-produced through media platforms, algorithmic infrastructures, cultural meanings, and policy regimes. It seeks to interrogate how global health narratives are constructed, circulated, contested, and governed within complex communication ecologies marked by transnational information flows, technological mediation, and competing epistemic systems (Alshahrani, 2026). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine diplomacy, misinformation, digital surveillance, and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, health communication has become deeply entangled with issues of power, trust, inequality, and governance. This Research Topic therefore aims to provide an interdisciplinary platform for examining how media systems, cultural identities, technological innovations, and policy structures collectively shape the production and interpretation of health knowledge across diverse societies. It further seeks to address how digital technologies expand opportunities for engagement while deepening epistemic inequalities, misinformation, and digital exclusion, particularly between the Global North and Global South. Submissions must explicitly analyse how digital technologies, platforms, or algorithmic systems shape health communication and its social consequences.We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• global health communication and knowledge production• media power, health narratives, and the politics of representation• digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and the future of health communication • health misinformation, disinformation, and platforms in the digital age • community engagement, participatory communication, and health advocacy• crisis communication and media framing during pandemics and humanitarian emergencies. Topic editors: Eric Msughter Aondover, Ifedolapo Ademosu, Benjamin Osadolor Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81925/interdisciplinary-perspectives-on-media-culture-technology-and-policy-on-global-health-narratives-and-communication-dynamics