Beyond Words: Amplification of Cancer Risk Communication on Social Media

Abstract

Social media provide a unique channel for disseminating evidence-based information to diverse audiences and organizational and private stakeholders, thus facilitating a dialog about health and health risks. Guided by the social amplification of risk framework, the goal of this study was to assess the level of audience engagement with messages posted on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Facebook page and evaluate the differences in the audience information behavior toward risk-related and non-risk posts. Data included 1,975 posts published on the NCI Facebook page as well as the corresponding 4,537 comments, 77,298 shares, and 145,462 likes. Links and images were the top two most frequent types of content for both risk-related and non-risk posts, but risk-related messages were more amplified through comments, shares, and likes. Comparing the modality of risk-related messages, videos, contrary to the prediction, were not more effective in attracting audience engagement than images. Finally, comments to risk-related posts did not repeat risk-related language suggesting that future studies should examine risk signal recognition and dissemination as separate behaviors. This study's findings emphasize the importance of focused investigation of message design strategies and message effects on the dissemination and amplification of communication related to health risks.

Rethinking Social Amplification of Risk: Social Media and Zika in Three Languages

“…To better understand public health emergencies like the Zika virus, past research has applied the social amplification of risk framework (SARF) (R. E. Kasperson & J. X. Kasperson, ; R. E. Kasperson et al., ; Renn, Burns, Kasperson, Kasperson, & Slovic, ) to various outbreaks (e.g., Busby & Duckett, ; Raupp, ; Rossmann, Meyer, & Schulz, 2017), diseases (e.g., Rickard, McComas, Clarke, Stedman, & Decker, ; Strekalova, ; Strekalova & Krieger, ), and health‐related topics (e.g., Barnett & Breakwell, ; Chong & Choy, ; Petts & Niemeyer, ). The SARF was developed to explain why certain risks experts characterize as small “produce massive public reactions” (R. E. Kasperson et al., , p. 178).…”

“…However, the SARF was formulated 30 years ago, long before the advent of the online media environment we know today, and, as a result, has been largely studied within traditional mass media. More recently, scholars have begun to consider online media (e.g., Chung, ; Guo & Li, ) and social media (e.g., Fellenor et al., ; Strekalova & Krieger, ) within the framework. This study uses the recent outbreak of the Zika virus as a case study to expand our understanding of the SARF within online social media environments.…”

How Risk Communication via Facebook and Twitter Shapes Behavioral Intentions: The Case of Fine Dust Pollution in South Korea

“…When a natural disaster or public health emergency occurs, social networking sites (SNSs) provide an effective channel for delivering emergency information to diverse audiences and organizational and private stakeholders, thus facilitating the exchange of information (Strekalova & Krieger, 2017). For this reason, SNSs have emerged as the communication channels and information sources most frequently used in risk and crisis situations (Jang & Baek, 2019;Park, 2018).…”

Comportamiento de la ciudadanía respecto a la información sobre salud: exposición, acceso y usos = The behavior of citizens regarding health information: exposure, access and uses

“…Por ejemplo, se ha analizado el papel de Google y otros buscadores para llegar a la información de salud online (Ybarra & Suman, 2006). Se han explorado los usos de Facebook (Cole-Lewis et al, 2016;Gage-Bouchard, LaValley, Mollica, & Beaupin, 2017;Kross et al, 2013;Rodríguez-gonzález et al, 2013;Strekalova & Krieger, 2017;Valle, Tate, Mayer, Allicock, & Cai, 2013), Youtube (Basch et al, n.d.;Chou, Hunt, Folkers, & Augustson, 2011;Orihuel Pérez-Klett, 2016;Sood, Sarangi, Pandey, & Murugiah, 2011;Wen, Chia, & Hao, 2015), Twitter (Himelboim & Han, 2014;Pemmaraju et al, 2017) y de otras redes.…”