Understanding Health Care Social Media Use From Different Stakeholder Perspectives: A Content Analysis of an Online Health Community

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to gather descriptive data on the professional use of social media in public rehabilitation settings and to analyze existing social media policies in those agencies through content analysis.Methods: The authors sent a survey to all state administrators or directors of these agencies (N = 50) in the United States, requesting frequency and other descriptive information, plus a copy of their social media policies (if available). The available policies were reviewed using content analysis procedures.Results: The results showed that although the frequency of social media use was high, training and inclusion of ethics was low. Regarding policy, approximately 42% reported a lack of an existing policy, and 38% were unsure about having a policy guide. The analysis of the available policies yielded 11 themes around which these policies were organized.Discussion: The authors offer a discussion of these results and its implications for policy and practice as well as future research. These include the need for more comprehensive social media policy creation in agencies and the role of clinical supervisors in ensuring ethical practice.

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Digital Natives as Budding Journalists: College TV Stations’ Uses of Twitter

Journalism & Mass Communication Educator ◽

10.1177/1077695818805899 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 74 (3) ◽

pp. 306-317 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Raluca Cozma ◽

Tom Hallaq

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Content Analysis ◽

Best Practices ◽

Media Use ◽

Digital Natives ◽

Journalism Education ◽

Social Media Use ◽

Broadcast Journalism ◽

Award Winning ◽

Journalism Students

This content analysis examines how award-winning student-run TV stations use Twitter to promote their work and to communicate with followers on campus and beyond. As digital natives and budding professionals, broadcast journalism students should showcase some of the best practices in social-media use. Variables under scrutiny include levels of activity and interactivity on Twitter feeds, popularity of accounts, and focus of tweets. The findings are alarming and suggest that journalism education lags behind shifts in the industry.

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Professionalism in a Digital Age: Opportunities and Considerations for Using Social Media in Health Care

Physical Therapy ◽

10.2522/ptj.20130227 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 95 (3) ◽

pp. 406-414 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

Kendra Gagnon ◽

Carla Sabus

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Social Media ◽

Health Care Providers ◽

Media Use ◽

Online Communication ◽

Policy Implications ◽

Online Information ◽

Care Providers ◽

Social Media Use ◽

Remarkable Change

Since the beginning of the millennium, there has been a remarkable change in how people access and share information. Much of this information is user-generated content found on social media sites. As digital technologies and social media continue to expand, health care providers must adapt their professional communication to meet the expectations and needs of consumers. This adaptation may include communication on social media sites. However, many health care providers express concerns that professional social media use, particularly interactions with patients, is ethically problematic. Social media engagement does not create ethical dissonance if best practices are observed and online communication adheres to terms of service, professional standards, and organizational policy. A well-executed social media presence provides health care providers, including physical therapists, the opportunity—and perhaps a professional obligation—to use social media sites to share or create credible health care information, filling a consumer void for high-quality online information on fitness, wellness, and rehabilitation. This perspective article provides a broad review of the emergence of social media in society and health care, explores policy implications of organizational adoption of health care social media, and proposes individual opportunities and guidelines for social media use by the physical therapy professional.

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Turkish Teacher Candidates’ Views on the “Mass Communication and Turkish” Course in the Context of Social Media Use

International Education Studies ◽

10.5539/ies.v12n4p128 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 128

Author(s):

Mesut Bulut ◽

Abdulkadir Kırbaş

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Content Analysis ◽

Mass Media ◽

Teacher Candidates ◽

Mass Communication ◽

Media Use ◽

National Consciousness ◽

Communication Tools ◽

Social Media Use ◽

Turkish Education

It was aimed in this study to determine the Turkish teacher candidates’ views on the “Mass Communication and Turkish” course in the context of social media use. A case study method was used in the study. Semi-structured interview forms for students were used in the process of gathering data. Certain data obtained as a result of interviews were interpreted through descriptive analyses within the scope of scientific research methods. The study was conducted at a university in the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey on 20 teacher candidates studying in the Department of Turkish Education. As a data collection instrument, interview forms were used to obtain the teacher candidates’ views on the relationship between mass communication and language, their habits of using mass media, the influence of mass media on language and on the teacher candidates, language problems in the context of the use of social media, the basic factors causing these problems and their suggestions for the solution of the problems within the scope of “Mass Communication and Turkish” course. The data obtained through the interview forms were recorded within the participant’s knowledge, and then transcribed by using the content analysis method. It was ensured that the data were complete, intact, and reliable. They were confirmed by the participants. Then, the voice recordings were destroyed based on ethical principles. Based on the data obtained from the interview forms, a content analysis was carried out to make explanations and do evaluations. As a result of the study, the teacher candidates saw the Mass Communication and Turkish course as a useful and necessary course for themselves. According to the teacher candidates, mass communication was important, and it was important to use the mass communication tools correctly and effectively in terms of language. Mass communication tools were not used in a conscious and sensitive way, especially in the context of social media. There were problems especially in the use of Turkish. A unity could not be established in language. A national consciousness could not be achieved. The “Mass Communication and Turkish” course expanded the horizons of the Turkish teacher candidates and made them more conscious in the use of language. After taking this course, they were clearly more familiar with the concept of mass communication. They learned the functions of mass media better. Again, according to the teacher candidates, they understood the importance of using Turkish correctly in mass communication in the context of social media. In the context of social media, the “Mass Communication and Turkish” course was found to fulfill important functions in the communication skills of Turkish teacher candidates in gaining the habit of using Turkish correctly and effectively. As a result of this study, it was found that this course provided an important contribution with a national consciousness to the reading, writing, listening and speaking of language/Turkish, which is the most basic tool for mass communication today that we call the information age. In this sense, as a result of the study, solutions were proposed for problems related to Turkish education and teaching in the context of mass communication.

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Social Media Insights Into US Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Analysis of Twitter Data

Journal of Medical Internet Research ◽

10.2196/21418 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (12) ◽

pp. e21418

Author(s):

Danny Valdez ◽

Marijn ten Thij ◽

Krishna Bathina ◽

Lauren A Rutter ◽

Johan Bollen

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Health Care ◽

Social Media ◽

Media Use ◽

The United States ◽

Social Media Use ◽

Data Set ◽

Daily Lives ◽

At Home

Background The COVID-19 pandemic led to unprecedented mitigation efforts that disrupted the daily lives of millions. Beyond the general health repercussions of the pandemic itself, these measures also present a challenge to the world’s mental health and health care systems. Considering that traditional survey methods are time-consuming and expensive, we need timely and proactive data sources to respond to the rapidly evolving effects of health policy on our population’s mental health. Many people in the United States now use social media platforms such as Twitter to express the most minute details of their daily lives and social relations. This behavior is expected to increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, rendering social media data a rich field to understand personal well-being. Objective This study aims to answer three research questions: (1) What themes emerge from a corpus of US tweets about COVID-19? (2) To what extent did social media use increase during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic? and (3) Does sentiment change in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Methods We analyzed 86,581,237 public domain English language US tweets collected from an open-access public repository in three steps. First, we characterized the evolution of hashtags over time using latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic modeling. Second, we increased the granularity of this analysis by downloading Twitter timelines of a large cohort of individuals (n=354,738) in 20 major US cities to assess changes in social media use. Finally, using this timeline data, we examined collective shifts in public mood in relation to evolving pandemic news cycles by analyzing the average daily sentiment of all timeline tweets with the Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner (VADER) tool. Results LDA topics generated in the early months of the data set corresponded to major COVID-19–specific events. However, as state and municipal governments began issuing stay-at-home orders, latent themes shifted toward US-related lifestyle changes rather than global pandemic-related events. Social media volume also increased significantly, peaking during stay-at-home mandates. Finally, VADER sentiment analysis scores of user timelines were initially high and stable but decreased significantly, and continuously, by late March. Conclusions Our findings underscore the negative effects of the pandemic on overall population sentiment. Increased use rates suggest that, for some, social media may be a coping mechanism to combat feelings of isolation related to long-term social distancing. However, in light of the documented negative effect of heavy social media use on mental health, social media may further exacerbate negative feelings in the long-term for many individuals. Thus, considering the overburdened US mental health care structure, these findings have important implications for ongoing mitigation efforts.

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