Biomedical Imaging and Rhetoric of Diagnosis in Medical Dramas and Docuseries

The article aims to investigate different representations and imaginaries of care in contemporary audiovisual products, with particular reference to popular cultural products such as medical dramas and docuseries. By analysing some case studies, two perspectives will be put in close dialogue: on the one hand, the position of healthcare institutions and doctors, and on the other hand, the position of patients. Despite their partly fictitious and rhetorical nature, these audiovisual products demonstrate the way illness and health are represented and imagined, which constitutes not only an aesthetic of care, but care as felt and experienced in and through some practices of the body. In particular, the authors will consider how medical dramas and docuseries represent new technologies, from diagnostic imaging to extended reality technologies, investigating how these techno-scientific innovations reshape the conceptualisation of the body, the image of illness, the perception of therapeutic practices, and the relationship between doctor and patient.