Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Manship School of Mass Communication

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This dissertation explores how storytelling (face-to-face, family, and through social media) that Black women in the U.S. South use to build systems of support and to address knowledge gaps in maternal and reproductive health. The project is grounded in the understanding that systemic inequities and one-size-fits-all healthcare practices contribute to disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality and reproductive health conditions in this population.

The study employs an integrated qualitative design combining semi-structured in-depth interviews with a social media narrative elicitation component. Through the interviews, it examines how Black women draw on communal and family narratives to share health information and build social support, how they use digital platforms to tell their own maternal and reproductive health stories, and how they experience receiving the health stories of other Black women. Rather than measuring effects on health outcomes, the study attends to how storytelling functions as meaning-making, knowledge production, and resistance across interpersonal and digital contexts. By centering cultural and geographic specificity, this work develops a theoretical framework for understanding how storytelling produces embodied knowledge and sustains community care, and it shows how a culture-centered approach can serve the communicative needs of a population that dominant health communication research has underserved.

Date

7-27-2026

Committee Chair

Winfield, Asha S.

LSU Acknowledgement

1

LSU Accessibility Acknowledgment

1

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Available for download on Monday, July 16, 2029

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