Communicative Strategies for Promoting the Professional Image of a Doctor in Social Media (Based on Facebook)

The article aims to identify communicative strategies for promoting the professional image of a doctor in the discourse of social networks. The material for this study was 264 posts from open zones of doctors' personal accounts on Facebook. The texts of the posts under study were grouped by the nature of the image made; communicative strategies that make the image were identified for each group. The strategies' formation is determined by the openness of the personality-oriented communicative space (the principles of communication in it can be used for institutional purposes) and by the publicity of interaction on the Internet (it acts as a catalyst for the development of image intentions). The personality-oriented nature of communication in social media presupposes the presentation of information of any type in accordance with its personal significance both for the sender and the receiver; attention always focuses on the "human stories" of communication participants. This type of interaction introduces a new implementation of communicants' personality-oriented and institutional intentions, among which is the intention of product promotion. As a result, social media's personality-oriented discursive intentions are transformed. The authors revealed that the nature of communicative strategies for promoting the professional image of a doctor is determined by (1) the discursive sphere of their use: personality-oriented by nature and transformed by FB discourse in accordance with the specific intentions of particular accounts; (2) the specific professional area in which the image status is formed; (3) the type of the created image of the doctor; (4) the individual personality and institutional intentions of the account's author. The key created images of doctors were: (1) "I am a doctor"; (2) "I am an expert in the field of medicine"; and (3) "I am a patient and a doctor". The authors have found that the image "I am a doctor" is made using communicative strategies of (a) actualizing one's belonging to the professional community; (b) professional informing (the sub-strategies of unauthorized and authorized professional informing); (c) presenting one's own professional experience. The image "I am an expert in the field of medicine" is made with the help of a strategy of expert evaluation of someone else's professional experience. The image "I am a patient and a doctor" is made using the strategy of disseminating the patient's experience.

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