Etienne Hien is a PhD student at LabSIC, supervised by Geneviève Vidal. His thesis, Appropriating Platforms in Mental Health: Prescription Logics, Actors’ Practices and the Recomposition of Mediations, is part of the hospital-university research project RHU PsyCARE (GHU Paris Psychiatrie & Neurosciences).
The research starts from a central question: how do the practices through which young people and the professionals who support them appropriate digital platforms mutually reshape the conditions under which care mediations operate? It examines two groups of actors. On one side, mental health professionals who invest in platforms to inform, raise awareness or extend their clinical activity, while navigating algorithmic and economic constraints that reconfigure their criteria of legitimacy. On the other, adolescents and young adults who use these same spaces to seek information, express themselves or look for help.
The study combines account observation, semi-structured interviews with professionals and expert patients, a questionnaire, and analysis of the terms of service of fourteen platforms. It aims to understand how care mediations are being recomposed at the interface between institutional prescription logics, algorithmic control and appropriation practices, and to shed light on the democratic, ethical and communicational tensions arising from the digitalisation of the mental health field.
Research areas
- Appropriation of platforms and recomposition of care mediations
- Institutional prescription logics and algorithmic control
- Digital practices of mental health professionals
- Digital practices of young people in mental health contexts
Publications and papers
Hien, E. (2025). « Digital devices in psychiatry and mental health », chapter 3, in Connected Digital Devices in Health, ISTE Editions.
Hien, E. (2023). « Young people and the use of social media in mental health », Journées des Pathologies émergentes chez les adolescents et le jeune adulte (JIPEJAAD).
Formations
2021, Master Innovation en communication (IC) Université Sorbonne Paris Nord
2020, Master Information, communication en santé et environnement (CISE) Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3)
2018, Licence Information, communication, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3)