A Content Analysis of Online Communities for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

The utilisation of social media among users with hearing loss: an analysis of Facebook communities

“…Even though previous studies [2,3] examined social media communities of hearing aid users and users with cochlear implants systematically, there is a lack of studies investigating communities of D/HH users systematically and thoroughly established on one specific type of social media only-Facebook, which would be established upon a wide range of interests of the D/HH community and would be either member initiated or organisation sponsored [7]. Moreover, the current study is as an upgrade of the previous study [3], where only a small number of German Facebook communities were examined with a quick measuring instrument for evaluation of social media communities through relational, substantive and technical aspects. Accordingly, the aim of our study is to advance knowledge in the field of social media communities being formed, accessed and maintained by D/HH users.…”

“…Kožuh et al [16] argue that the more frequently D/HH communicate in written language on SNSs, the more they tend to build communities on SNSs. According to Kožuh et al [3], online communities can be understood either as virtual communities which only exist online [17], or communities which were created online based on existing communities in the offline environment [7]. In our study, we focused on SNSs as an online environment where social media communities are created and maintained, irrespective of whether they exist online only or are created online based on the offline experience.…”

“…Hearing loss, as the core point of interest in social media communities, was a subject of research in several recent studies [2][3][4]. While these studies focused on examining social media communities of hearing aid users [2], users with cochlear implants [4] and, generally, Facebook communities of D/HH [3], other studies, aiming at investigating social media communities, focused on communities devoted to users suffering from breast cancer [5] or raised blood pressure [6].…”

“…Hearing loss, as the core point of interest in social media communities, was a subject of research in several recent studies [2][3][4]. While these studies focused on examining social media communities of hearing aid users [2], users with cochlear implants [4] and, generally, Facebook communities of D/HH [3], other studies, aiming at investigating social media communities, focused on communities devoted to users suffering from breast cancer [5] or raised blood pressure [6]. Even though previous studies [2,3] examined social media communities of hearing aid users and users with cochlear implants systematically, there is a lack of studies investigating communities of D/HH users systematically and thoroughly established on one specific type of social media only-Facebook, which would be established upon a wide range of interests of the D/HH community and would be either member initiated or organisation sponsored [7].…”

“…While these studies focused on examining social media communities of hearing aid users [2], users with cochlear implants [4] and, generally, Facebook communities of D/HH [3], other studies, aiming at investigating social media communities, focused on communities devoted to users suffering from breast cancer [5] or raised blood pressure [6]. Even though previous studies [2,3] examined social media communities of hearing aid users and users with cochlear implants systematically, there is a lack of studies investigating communities of D/HH users systematically and thoroughly established on one specific type of social media only-Facebook, which would be established upon a wide range of interests of the D/HH community and would be either member initiated or organisation sponsored [7]. Moreover, the current study is as an upgrade of the previous study [3], where only a small number of German Facebook communities were examined with a quick measuring instrument for evaluation of social media communities through relational, substantive and technical aspects.…”