Wellness Care as a Commodity of Hope: A Critique of Wellness Communication in the Digital Health Era

Abstract

This academic article aims to examine the discursive construction of wellness care in the digital health era. It analyzes how wellness is communicated as a marker of a good life, a controllable body, youthfulness, and a disciplined self. It also examines the roles of communicators and communication actors, including influencers, business brands, digital platforms, lifestyle media, and related institutions, in producing and defining wellness care as a commodity of hope. This article employs a critical analytical approach by synthesizing concepts of discourse, risk society, digital health, holistic health, and anti-aging discourse in order to explain the relationship between wellness communication and market logic in digital society.

The central argument of this article is that wellness care is not merely a form of health practice or a contemporary lifestyle trend. Rather, it is a discourse that produces meanings about the body, life, youthfulness, discipline, and the value of the individual in digital society. This discourse operates through language, images, narratives, promises of life transformation, and personal role models. In doing so, it transforms consumers’ risks, fears, and insecurities, such as aging, obesity, stress, poor sleep, or bodily imbalance, into desires for the consumption of wellness-related products, services, activities, and lifestyles.

This article therefore argues that wellness care in the digital health era does not merely sell health. Instead, it sells the hope that life can become better, the body can be controlled, and the self can become more valuable through continuous self-investment. However, such hope is not neutral. It is tied to market logic, which turns self-care into something that must be purchased, performed, and continuously maintained.

Keywords: Wellness Care, Commodity of Hope, Wellness Communication, Digital Health, Discourse, Anti-Aging, Self-Regulation