Cancer Communication and User Engagement on Chinese Social Media: Extracting Topics Using Text Analytics (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang Chen ◽  
Xiaohui Wang ◽  
Xin Ma
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Cancer Treatment ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Health Campaigns ◽  
Cancer Communication ◽  
Public Health Challenges ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Populous Country ◽  
Chinese Social Media

BACKGROUND Cancer ranks among one of the most serious public health challenges worldwide. In China, the world’s most populous country, about a quarter of the population suffers from cancer. Social media have become an important platform for the Chinese public to express opinions. OBJECTIVE Therefore, we investigated cancer-related discussions on the Chinese social media platform Weibo to identify cancer topics with the highest level of user engagement. METHODS We applied topic modeling and regression analysis to analyze and visualize cancer-related messages on Weibo and examine the relationships between different cancer topics and user engagement (i.e., number of retweets, comments, and likes). RESULTS Results revealed that cancer communication on Weibo has generally focused on six topics including social support, cancer treatment, cancer prevention, women’s cancers, smoking and skin cancer, and others. Discussion about social support and cancer treatment topics attracted the highest user engagement and received the greatest numbers of retweets, comments, and likes. CONCLUSIONS Our investigation of cancer-related communication on Weibo provided valuable insights into public concerns about cancer and will help guide the development of health campaigns in response.

scholarly journals Conspiracy and debunking narratives about COVID-19 origins on Chinese social media: How it started and who is to blame

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaiping Chen ◽  
Anfan Chen ◽  
Jingwen Zhang ◽  
Jingbo Meng ◽  
Cuihua Shen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Intercultural Understanding ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Conspiracy Narratives ◽  
Chinese Social Media

This paper studies conspiracy and debunking narratives about the origins of COVID-19 on a major Chinese social media platform, Weibo, from January to April 2020. Popular conspiracies about COVID-19 on Weibo, including that the virus is human-synthesized or a bioweapon, differ substan-tially from those in the United States. They attribute more responsibility to the United States than to China, especially following Sino-U.S. confrontations. Compared to conspiracy posts, debunking posts are associated with lower user participation but higher mobilization. Debunking narratives can be more engaging when they come from women and influencers and cite scientists. Our find-ings suggest that conspiracy narratives can carry highly cultural and political orientations. Correc-tion efforts should consider political motives and identify important stakeholders to reconstruct international dialogues toward intercultural understanding.

Facebook seeks new users and markets as troubles mount

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Regulatory Regime ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Video Sharing ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Business Response ◽  
European Markets

Subject Facebook's troubles and business response. Significance Facebook’s financial performance is determined by its success in adding, retaining and engaging active users of its products, particularly its eponymous social media platform and photo- and video-sharing service Instagram. Its North American and West European markets are reaching their ceiling for new users while removing fake accounts, estimated by the company to account for 3-4% of the total, is reducing overall numbers. Meanwhile, privacy, data sharing and security, and false and bot-created content concerns, put user engagement and retention at risk, further endangering revenue. Impacts A global regulatory regime against social media is highly improbable. Some US and EU regulation could be useful for Facebook as barriers to entry, as it does in such industries as banking and airlines. Sustaining advertiser loyalty is as vital to the sustainability of Facebook’s business model as growing users.

scholarly journals War Metaphors in Chinese Digital Media Coverage of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-27
Author(s):  
Zheng Yang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Semantic Network ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Semantic Network Analysis ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Chinese Social Media

War metaphors have been found to be the most frequently used metaphors for conceptualizing diseases, epidemic and medicine. During the COVID-19 epidemic, war metaphors have been found to be widely used in both online and offline coverage. This study mainly focuses on how war metaphors were used in Chinese social media coverage about the COVID-19 epidemic. Using the method of semantic network analysis and the account of The People’s Daily on the Chinese social media platform Weibo as an example, the findings show that war metaphors are widely used in the digital coverage of COVID-19. Compared with defensive metaphors and war process metaphors, offensive war metaphors are appearing much more frequently in digital coverage, and often with the use of national collective subjects. These two characteristics highlight how digital coverage uses militarized metaphors to mobilize and inspire enthusiasm among the Chinese people, and to strengthen the Chinese government’s control in dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic.

scholarly journals Role of Moderators on Engagement of Adolescents With Depression or Anxiety in a Social Media Intervention: Content Analysis of Web-Based Interactions

10.2196/13467 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. e13467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Windler ◽  
Maeve Clair ◽  
Cassandra Long ◽  
Leah Boyle ◽  
Ana Radovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Beliefs ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Peer Social Support ◽  
Media Intervention ◽  
Intervention Content ◽  
Blog Posts

Background The Supporting Our Valued Adolescents (SOVA) intervention aims to use a moderated social media website to encourage peer discussion about negative health beliefs, which may prevent treatment uptake. Web moderators with a background in behavioral health are used to facilitate peer conversation to promote a sense of community, provide social support, and ensure safety. Objective Although moderation is a core component of this intervention, little is known on best practices for moderators to ensure safety while encouraging engagement. This study sought to describe interactions between moderators and peer users and understand moderator experiences through individual interviews. Methods Adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 26 years with depression or anxiety history were recruited for a usability study of the SOVA intervention. During this study, 14 moderators were trained to regularly review comments to blog posts for safety, facilitate conversation, and correct misinformation. A total of 110 blog posts and their associated comments were extracted and coded using a codebook based on items from the supportive accountability model and a peer social support analysis. Closing interviews with 12 moderators assessing their experience of moderating were conducted, recorded, and transcribed. Blog post text and comments as well as transcripts of moderator interviews were assessed using a thematic analysis approach, and blog posts were examined for trends in content of moderator comments comparing blog posts with differences in comment contributor order. Results There were no safety concerns during the study, and moderators only intervened to remove identifiable information. Web moderators exhibited elements of supportive accountability (such as being perceived as experts and using verbal rewards as well as offering informational and emotional support). When the moderators provided the last comment under a blog post, thereby potentially ending contribution by users, they were at times found to be commenting about their own experiences. Moderators interviewed after completing their role expressed challenges in engaging users. A cohort of moderators who received more extensive training on supportive accountability and peer social support felt their ability to engage users improved because of the training. Conclusions Moderators of a Web-based support site for adolescents with depression or anxiety were able to ensure safety while promoting user engagement. Moderators can elicit user engagement by offering gratitude and encouragement to users, asking users follow-up questions, and limiting their own opinions and experiences when responding to comments.

 A platform for underclass youth: Hanmai rap videos, social class, and surveillance on Chinese social media

First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaxi Hou
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Algorithm Design ◽  
Chinese Youth ◽  
Class Stratification ◽  
State Surveillance ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Chinese Social Media

With increasing influence on everyday social interactions and cultural practices, social media platforms do not just represent but also profoundly reproduce various forms of social inequalities. This essay investigates what role social media have played in the emergence of an underclass habitus among Chinese youth. By focusing on the rise and fall of a participatory hanmai culture on Kuaishou, an underclass-centric social media platform in China, the study identifies social media platforms as key actors in restructuring power relations. Chinese social media platforms, particularly Kuaishou, produce contemporary relationships of power by simultaneously incorporating algorithm design, profit-seeking strategies, underclass users’ expressions, and state surveillance. The overall effect is to mediate, regulate and buttress social inequalities in the process of sustaining Chinese class stratification. This analysis necessarily problematizes and debunks the myth of technological neutrality claimed by social media platforms. The result is that Chinese underclass youth (individual and unexpected acts of human agency aside) are routinely subjected to and reproduced through the logic of both capitalist accumulation and state authoritarianism via their participation on these social media platforms.

scholarly journals Countering COVID-19-related anti-Chinese racism with translanguaged swearing on social media

Multilingua ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 607-616 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongqiang Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
Social Media Platform ◽  
Cross Cultural Communication ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Verbal Repetition ◽  
Social Media Communication ◽  
Chinese Social Media

AbstractThe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a spectacular rise in social media communication and an unprecedented avalanche of global conversation. This paper traces the emergence of the racist term “Chinese virus” used by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, on the Western social media platform Twitter and its reception and recontextualization on Chinese social media. Creative bilingual responses fusing English and Chinese resulted in a popular searchable meme “#用中式英语跨文化交流#” (“#Chinglish used for cross-cultural communication#”), on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. Such linguistic creativity involves a variation of swears to mock and condemn the racist phrase. Formally, linguistic practices such as self-coinage, transliteration, verbal repetition, and acronyms can be observed. Functionally, the recontexualizations evidence a defensive ideology linked to nationalism and modernism. Ultimately, combatting the English racist term “Chinese virus” with a creative mixture of English and Chinese demonstrates how English has become ever more decentered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Role of Moderators on Engagement of Adolescents With Depression or Anxiety in a Social Media Intervention: Content Analysis of Web-Based Interactions (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Windler ◽  
Maeve Clair ◽  
Cassandra Long ◽  
Leah Boyle ◽  
Ana Radovic
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Beliefs ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
Peer Social Support ◽  
Media Intervention ◽  
Intervention Content ◽  
Blog Posts

BACKGROUND The Supporting Our Valued Adolescents (SOVA) intervention aims to use a moderated social media website to encourage peer discussion about negative health beliefs, which may prevent treatment uptake. Web moderators with a background in behavioral health are used to facilitate peer conversation to promote a sense of community, provide social support, and ensure safety. OBJECTIVE Although moderation is a core component of this intervention, little is known on best practices for moderators to ensure safety while encouraging engagement. This study sought to describe interactions between moderators and peer users and understand moderator experiences through individual interviews. METHODS Adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 26 years with depression or anxiety history were recruited for a usability study of the SOVA intervention. During this study, 14 moderators were trained to regularly review comments to blog posts for safety, facilitate conversation, and correct misinformation. A total of 110 blog posts and their associated comments were extracted and coded using a codebook based on items from the supportive accountability model and a peer social support analysis. Closing interviews with 12 moderators assessing their experience of moderating were conducted, recorded, and transcribed. Blog post text and comments as well as transcripts of moderator interviews were assessed using a thematic analysis approach, and blog posts were examined for trends in content of moderator comments comparing blog posts with differences in comment contributor order. RESULTS There were no safety concerns during the study, and moderators only intervened to remove identifiable information. Web moderators exhibited elements of supportive accountability (such as being perceived as experts and using verbal rewards as well as offering informational and emotional support). When the moderators provided the last comment under a blog post, thereby potentially ending contribution by users, they were at times found to be commenting about their own experiences. Moderators interviewed after completing their role expressed challenges in engaging users. A cohort of moderators who received more extensive training on supportive accountability and peer social support felt their ability to engage users improved because of the training. CONCLUSIONS Moderators of a Web-based support site for adolescents with depression or anxiety were able to ensure safety while promoting user engagement. Moderators can elicit user engagement by offering gratitude and encouragement to users, asking users follow-up questions, and limiting their own opinions and experiences when responding to comments.

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