scholarly journals Title: Perineum Sunning: How Social Media Promotes Public Interest in a Potentially Harmful, Non-Evidence-Based “Wellness” Practice (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Ottwell ◽  
Micah Hartwell ◽  
Tracy Beswick ◽  
Taylor Calli Rogers ◽  
Heather Ivy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Sun Exposure ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Observational Study Design

BACKGROUND Perineum sunning is a potentially harmful, yet popular new health trend cultivated by social media. OBJECTIVE Our primary objective is to evaluate public interest in perineum sunning. METHODS Using an observational study design, we searched Google Trends from November 1, 2019, to December 31, 2019, for the following terms: “perineum sunning,” “perineum tanning”, “Metaphysical Meagan”, and “Josh Brolin.” UberSuggest was used to investigate monthly search volumes and user engagement. RESULTS Prior to the Instagram post going viral, there was no search interest in perineum sunning. ARIMA modeling for “perineum sunning” forecasted no increase in searches (0.00) if the post had not gone viral, while actual interest conveyed a relative cumulative increase of 919.00% from the day the post went viral through the end of the year. The mean interest over this time period was 26.40% (SD=27.59) over baseline (t=5.66, df=34, p<0.01). User engagement showed that nearly 50% of people who searched for “perineum sunning” were likely to click a returned link for more information. CONCLUSIONS Google Trends data demonstrated that one social media post claiming non-evidence-based health benefits of regular sun exposure — without the use of sunscreen — to the anogenital region resulted in mainstream media coverage that generated significant public interest. Medical journals, dermatologists, and other healthcare professionals have opportunities to educate and correct public misperceptions about viral wellness trends such as perineum sunning. CLINICALTRIAL N/A

Young adults know that their issues are not represented in the news: Israeli young adults and mainstream news media

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Nuriely ◽  
Moti Gigi ◽  
Yuval Gozansky
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Online News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the ways socio-economic issues are represented in mainstream news media and how it is consumed, understood and interpreted by Israeli young adults (YAs). It examines how mainstream media uses neo-liberal discourse, and the ways YAs internalize this ethic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome its limitations. Design/methodology/approach This was a mixed methods study. First, it undertook content analysis of the most popular Israeli mainstream news media among YAs: the online news site Ynet and the TV Channel 2 news. Second, the authors undertook semi-structured in-depth interviews with 29 Israeli YAs. The analysis is based on an online survey of 600 young Israelis, aged 18–35 years. Findings Most YAs did not perceive mainstream media as enabling a reliable understanding of the issues important to them. The content analysis revealed that self-representation of YAs is rare, and that their issues were explained, and even resolved, by older adults. Furthermore, most of YAs' problems in mainstream news media were presented using a neo-liberal perspective. Finally, from the interviews, the authors learned that YAs did not find information that could help them deal with their most pressing economic and social issue, in the content offered by mainstream media. For most of them, social media overcomes these shortcomings. Originality/value Contrary to research that has explored YAs’ consumerism of new media outlets, this article explores how YAs in Israel are constructed in the media, as well as the way in which YAs understand mainstream and new social media coverage of the issues most important to them. Using media content analysis and interviews, the authors found that Young Adults tend to be ambivalent toward media coverage. They understand the lack of media information: most of them know that they do not learn enough from the media. This acknowledgment accompanies their tendency to internalize the neo-liberal logic and conservative Israeli national culture, in which class and economic redistribution are largely overlooked. Mainstream news media uses neo-liberal discourse, and young adults internalize this logic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome the limitations this discourse offers. They do so by turning to social media, mainly Facebook. Consequently, their behavior maintains the logic of the market, while also developing new social relations, enabled by social media.

Media, Social Media, and the Securitization of Mental Health Problems in Nepal

2021 ◽  
pp. 838-859
Author(s):  
Sudeep Uprety ◽  
Rajesh Ghimire
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Mental Health Issues ◽  
Securitization Theory ◽  
Journalistic Professionalism

This chapter attempts to unfold the trend and nature of mainstream and social media coverage on mental health issues in Nepal through suicide case of Yama Buddha, a popular musician. Using the securitization theory and concepts of threat construction and threat neutralization, major findings through content analysis and key informant interviews reveal reputed mainstream media following cautious route towards threat neutralization and therefore, maintaining a level of journalistic professionalism. However, especially in the other online media, blogs, and other social media, there were sensationalist words and tone used to attract the audience, triggering various sorts of emotional responses, thereby fulfilling the act of securitization. Major recommendations from this chapter include more awareness and understanding about the nature and type of mental health problems; capacity building of journalists and media professionals to better understand and report on mental health problems; development and proper implementation of media guidelines on reporting mental health issues.

scholarly journals Using the president’s tweets to understand political diversion in the age of social media

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Lewandowsky ◽  
Michael Jetter ◽  
Ullrich K. H. Ecker
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Increased Activity

Abstract Social media has arguably shifted political agenda-setting power away from mainstream media onto politicians. Current U.S. President Trump’s reliance on Twitter is unprecedented, but the underlying implications for agenda setting are poorly understood. Using the president as a case study, we present evidence suggesting that President Trump’s use of Twitter diverts crucial media (The New York Times and ABC News) from topics that are potentially harmful to him. We find that increased media coverage of the Mueller investigation is immediately followed by Trump tweeting increasingly about unrelated issues. This increased activity, in turn, is followed by a reduction in coverage of the Mueller investigation—a finding that is consistent with the hypothesis that President Trump’s tweets may also successfully divert the media from topics that he considers threatening. The pattern is absent in placebo analyses involving Brexit coverage and several other topics that do not present a political risk to the president. Our results are robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables and examination of several alternative explanations, although the generality of the successful diversion must be established by further investigation.

scholarly journals STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS OF RELIGION-BASED HATE SPEECH IN SOCIAL MEDIA: A CASE STUDY OF THE DIRECTORATE INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY AT POLDA METRO JAYA

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilang Reno Prakoso ◽  
Arthur Josias Simon Runturambi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Intelligence Analysis ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Strategic Intelligence ◽  
Religious Intolerance

The development of communication technology continues to advance rapidly. Social media is able to present individual voices that have never been heard through mainstream media coverage before. In Indonesia, the changes in the world have become increasingly clear when the era of communication has flooded the lives of religious communities. Religious discourse in Indonesia in recent years has been colored by accusations of religious intolerance in the form of hate speech through social media. The prohibition on the construction of houses of worship, prohibition of book discussions, attacks on certain groups, heresy from certain religious groups, threatening expressions of hatred, and so on are a series of acts of religious intolerance so that the potential for social conflict appears clearly. The Police Intelligence and Security as an institution that has the obligation to carry out early detection of threats must play an active role in making prevention and anticipation efforts. This research examines the Strategic Intelligence Analysis of Religious-Based Hate Speech on Social Media by the Directorate of Intelligence and Security at Polda Metro Jaya.

scholarly journals Social media usage by President Donald Trump before and after the 2016 elections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Glueckstern ◽  
Alexi Benyacar ◽  
Sacha Grigri
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Media Use ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Media

According to Gill (2017), the present era of electronic revolution is one in which social media has become a means to an end in political sphere communication. Today, political marketing and advertising for persons seeking elective posts analyze, develop, execute and manage campaigns as a way of driving public opinion (Laing &amp; Khattab, 2016). Social media provides a platform on which one can engage with the so-called connected generation. If the November 2016 elections are anything to go by, Twitter proved to be the medium of choice for citizens to engage and consume political content (Le et al., 2017). Ideally, tweets formed the basis of facilitating user engagement through the provision of content and newsbreaks. By extension, the mentioned discussions would influence the political discourse while establishing the capacity to determine the events of mainstream media. This study seeks to establish social media usage by President Donald Trump before and after his election. An understanding of such trend is essential in inferring as to whether Social media, in this case Twitter, plays a role in the current political spheres by promoting influence of a given aspirant. This stems from various studies that have stated that there is an association between social media use and an aspirant’s influence of the connected generation who are especially the youths. For instance, a thesis by Hwang (2016) observed that President Trump’s Twitter usage contributes to his political poll success which he associates with a reflection of his personality in the media use. This was also observed by Lilleker, Jackson, Thorsen and Veneti (2016) who stated that President Trump’s media use contributed to his election. It would hence be essential to understand President Trump’s nature of usage of Twitter. Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) conducted a study in which they observed use of fake news to influence people into certain political alignments. Twitter was also observed as one of the channels through which fake news was distributed. This study might help to create a foundation under which more studies can be done to determine the association of social media with other issues facing the society such as fake news and environment issues and their role on presidential elections. It would also be worth noting that there has been high politicization of President Trump’s use of Twitter especially during his Campaigns. This study would hence help to infer whether there is a change in this factor after his election.

scholarly journals Public interest in Cannabis during election season: a Google Trends analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Torgerson ◽  
Will Roberts ◽  
Drew Lester ◽  
Jam Khojasteh ◽  
Matt Vassar
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Internet Search ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us

Abstract Introduction Given that 72% of internet users seek out health information using an internet search engine (Google being the most popular); we sought to investigate the public internet search interest in cannabis as a health topic when cannabis legislation appeared on state ballots and during presidential elections. Materials and methods We searched Google Trends for “cannabis” as a health topic. Google Trends data were extracted during the time period of May 1, 2008 to May 1, 2019 for the United States (US) and select states (18) within the US including: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington when cannabis was on the ballot. These state elections were referenda, not legislative votes. We then compared the internet search interest for cannabis before and after each election. To evaluate whether any associations with changes in the volume of cannabis internet searches were specific to the cannabis topic, or also occurred with other topics of general interest during an election year, the authors ran additional analyses of previously popular debated policies during Presidential Elections that may act as control topics. These policies included Education, Gun Control, Climate Change, Global Warming, and Abortion. We used the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) algorithm to forecast expected relative internet search interests for the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Elections. Individual variables were compared using a linear regression analysis for the beta coefficients performed in Stata Version 15.1 (StataCorp). Results Public internet search interest for “cannabis” increased during the voting month above the previous mean internet search interest for all 18 bills. For the US, observed internet search interest during each Presidential Election was 26.9% [95% CI, 18.4–35.4%] greater than expected in 2012 and 29.8% [95% CI, 20.8–38.8%] greater than expected in 2016. In 2016, significant state-level findings included an increase in relative internet search rates for cannabis in states with higher usage rates of cannabis in the past month (Coeff (95% CI), 3.4 (2.8–4.0)) and past month illicit drug use except cannabis rates (Coeff (95% CI), 17.4 (9.8–25.0)). Relative internet search rates for cannabis from 2008 to 2019 were also associated with increased cannabis usage in the past month (Coeff (95% CI), 3.1 (2.5–3.7)). States with higher access to legal cannabis were associated with higher relative internet search volumes for cannabis (Coeff (95% CI), 0.31 (0.15–0.46)). Of the five additional policies that were searched as topics, only two showed an increase in internet search interest during each Presidential Election. Climate Change increased by 3.5% [95% CI, − 13-20%] in 2012 and 20.1% [95% CI, 0–40%] in 2016 while Global Warming increased by 1.1% [95% CI, − 19-21%] in 2012 and 4.6% [95% CI, − 6-15%] in 2016. Conclusion Based on these results, we expect public interest in cannabis will spike prior to the Presidential election in 2020. Of the five selected control policies, only two showed an increase in internet search interest during both Presidential Elections and neither exceeded the internet search increase of cannabis. These results may indicate the growing awareness of cannabis in the US and mark a possible target for the timely dissemination of evidence-based information regarding cannabis and its usage/side-effects during future elections. Consequently, the results of this study may be important to physicians since they will likely receive an increased volume of questions relating to cannabis and its therapeutic uses during election season from interested patients. We recommend establishing a cannabis repository of evidence-based information, providing physician education, and a dosing guide be created to enable physicians to provide high quality care around the issue of cannabis.

scholarly journals Exploring HIV-AIDS interests in the MENA region using Internet based searches

First Monday ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
Online Information ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Sexually Transmitted ◽  
Internet Searches ◽  
Hiv Aids

Due to the scarcity of official data on sexually transmitted diseases in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), it becomes important to seek alternative indications on the online information interests and possible spread of such diseases. This paper uses news stories from 10 Arabic media outlets, Wikipedia views, and data from Google Trends as well as social media on the HIV-AIDS epidemic. In order to investigate whether Internet searches are driven or influenced by media coverage, the correlation between media coverage and Internet searches is examined. The results indicate that there are very weak to moderate correlations between the two as media coverage of HIV-AIDS is not a good indicator of public attention. Data sources that are more accessible, like Google and Wikipedia searches and social media, can provide a better understanding of public information interests. Also, data retrieved from Google Trends in relation to the search terms “AIDS treatment” and “AIDS symptoms” provide important indicators on the top cities from which searches often originate. The findings of the study can aid health practitioners in identifying interest in and awareness of HIV-AIDS in the MENA region.

scholarly journals Marginalizing the Mainstream: How Social Media Privilege Political Information

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Web Search ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Cross Platform ◽  
Data Journalism ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Official Sources

The following reports on research undertaken concerning the “misinformation problem” on social media during the run-up to the U.S. presidential elections in 2020. Employing techniques borrowed from data journalism, it develops a form of cross-platform analysis that is attuned to both commensurability as well as platform specificity. It analyses the most engaged-with or top-ranked political content on seven online platforms: TikTok, 4chan, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google Web Search. Discussing the extent to which social media platforms marginalize mainstream media and mainstream the fringe, the analyses found that TikTok parodies mainstream media, 4chan and Reddit dismiss it and direct users to alternative influencer networks and extreme YouTube content. Twitter prefers the hyperpartisan over it. Facebook’s “fake news” problem also concerns declining amounts of mainstream media referenced. Instagram has influencers (rather than, say, experts) dominating user engagement. By comparison, Google Web Search buoys the liberal mainstream (and sinks conservative sites), but generally gives special interest sources, as they were termed in the study, the privilege to provide information rather than official sources. The piece concludes with a discussion of source and “platform criticism”, concerning how online platforms are seeking to filter the content that is posted or found there through increasing editorial intervention. These “editorial epistemologies”, applied especially around COVID-19 keywords, are part of an expansion of so-called content moderation to what I call “serious queries”, or keywords that return official information. Other epistemological strategies for editorially moderating the misinformation problem are also treated.

Bioenterprise Media Strategy 2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moira A. Gunn
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
New Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Media ◽  
Business Media

In 2012 and 2016, the first two strategic science-business media models were published (SBBMM 1.0 and 2.0). Since that time, there have been significant changes both to the media landscape and to the usage and capability of online and social media platforms. This paper seeks to describe the current bioindustry-relevant media landscape, to introduce a new media model, the Strategic Bioenterprise Media Model 2020 (SBMM 2020), which reflects this new landscape, and to present a mainstream submodel to support the latest opportunity for biotechnology media coverage: Mainstream Media. Examples are drawn from media coverage following the FDA approvals of Zulresso from Sage Therapeutics, Aimovig from Novartis and Amgen, and AquAdvantage salmon from AquAdvantage Technologies. The overall goal of this paper is to equip bioenterprise professionals with an understanding of media dynamics and the strategic potential it brings, ultimately contributing to bioenterprise success.

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