Can Tweets Replace Polls? A U.S. Health‐Care Reform Case Study

Kim, Annice; Murphy, Joe; Richards, Ashley; Hansen, Heather; Powell, Rebecca; Haney, Carol

doi:10.1002/9781118751534.ch3

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Crowdsourcing involves using a large network of workers to complete micro-tasks. Kim et al also used crowdsourcing via CrowdFlower to analyze sentiment of tweets about US health care reform, similar to methods used for this study, and found a high level of agreement between trained coders from the research team and crowdsourced coders (82.4% for positive sentiment, 100% for negative sentiment) [ 43 ]. The tweets to be analyzed and instructions with codebook and detailed definitions (including example tweets) were provided to the CrowdFlower contributors via the online CrowdFlower platform.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing the Followers and Tweets of a Marijuana-Focused Twitter Handle

Cavazos‐Rehg¹,

Krauss²,

Grucza³

et al. 2014

J Med Internet Res

102

103

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BackgroundTwitter is a popular social media forum for sharing personal experiences, interests, and opinions. An improved understanding of the discourse on Twitter that encourages marijuana use can be helpful for tailoring and targeting online and offline prevention messages.ObjectivesThe intent of the study was to assess the content of “tweets” and the demographics of followers of a popular pro-marijuana Twitter handle (@stillblazingtho).MethodsWe assessed the sentiment and content of tweets (sent from May 1 to December 31, 2013), as well as the demographics of consumers that follow a popular pro-marijuana Twitter handle (approximately 1,000,000 followers) using Twitter analytics from Demographics Pro. This analytics company estimates demographic characteristics based on Twitter behavior/usage, relying on multiple data signals from networks, consumption, and language and requires confidence of 95% or above to make an estimate of a single demographic characteristic.ResultsA total of 2590 tweets were sent from @stillblazingtho during the 8-month period and 305 (11.78%) replies to another Twitter user were excluded for qualitative analysis. Of the remaining 2285 tweets, 1875 (82.06%) were positive about marijuana, 403 (17.64%) were neutral, and 7 (0.31%) appeared negative about marijuana. Approximately 1101 (58.72%) of the positive marijuana tweets were perceived as jokes or humorous, 340 (18.13%) implied that marijuana helps you to feel good or relax, 294 (15.68%) mentioned routine, frequent, or heavy use, 193 (10.29%) mentioned blunts, marijuana edibles, or paraphernalia (eg, bongs, vaporizers), and 186 (9.92%) mentioned other risky health behaviors (eg, tobacco, alcohol, other drugs, sex). The majority (699,103/959,143; 72.89%) of @stillblazingtho followers were 19 years old or younger. Among people ages 17 to 19 years, @stillblazingtho was in the top 10% of all Twitter handles followed. More followers of @stillblazingtho in the United States were African American (323,107/759,407; 42.55%) or Hispanic (90,732/759,407; 11.95%) than the Twitter median average (African American 22.4%, inter-quartile ratio [IQR] 5.1-62.5%; Hispanic 5.4%, IQR 3.0-10.8%) and among Hispanics, @stillblazingtho was in the top 30% of all Twitter handles followed.ConclusionsYoung people are especially responsive to social media influences and often establish substance use patterns during this phase of development. Our findings underscore the need for surveillance efforts to monitor the pro-marijuana content reaching young people on Twitter.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing the Followers and Tweets of a Marijuana-Focused Twitter Handle

Cavazos‐Rehg¹,

Krauss²,

Grucza³

et al. 2014

J Med Internet Res

102

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Crowd sourcing involves using a large network of online (i.e., virtual) workers to complete micro-tasks. Kim et al also used crowd sourcing via Crowd Flower to analyze sentiment of Tweets about U.S. healthcare reform and found high level of agreement between trained coders from the research team and crowd sourced coders (82.4% for positive sentiment, 100% for negative sentiment) [14]. Members of the research team uploaded the sample of 7,000 Tweets to be analyzed onto the online Crowd Flower platform for Crowd Flower contributors to code.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twitter Chatter About Marijuana

Cavazos‐Rehg

Krauss

Fisher

et al. 2015

Journal of Adolescent Health

160

182

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Purpose-We sought to examine the sentiment and themes of marijuana-related chatter on Twitter sent by influential Twitter users, and to describe the demographics of these Twitter users.Methods-We assessed the sentiment and themes of a random sample (n=7000) of influential marijuana-related Tweets (sent from 2/5 -3/5/2014). Demographics of the users Tweeting about marijuana were inferred using a social media analytics company (DemographicsPro for Twitter).Results-Most marijuana-related tweets reflected a positive sentiment towards marijuana use, with pro-marijuana Tweets outnumbering anti-marijuana Tweets by a factor of over 15. The most common theme of pro-marijuana Tweets included the Tweeter stating that he/she wants/plans to use marijuana, followed by Tweeting about frequent/heavy/or regular marijuana use and stating that marijuana has health benefits and/or should be legalized. Tweeters of marijuana-related content were younger and a greater proportion was African American compared to the Twitter average. Conclusions-MarijuanaTwitter chatter sent by influential Twitter users tends to be promarijuana and popular among African Americans and youth/young adults. Marijuana-related harms may afflict some individuals; therefore, our findings should be used to inform online and offline prevention efforts that work to target individuals who are most at-risk for harms associated with marijuana use. KeywordsMarijuana; Social Media; Youth © 2014 Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine. All rights reserved.Please address correspondence and reprint requests to: Patricia A. Cavazos-Rehg, Ph.D., Campus Box 8134, Department of Psychiatry, 660 South Euclid, St. Louis, MO 63110, Phone: (314) 362-2152, FAX: (314) 362-4247, rehgp@psychiatry.wustl.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.Conflicts of Interest Dr. Bierut is listed as an inventor on Issued U.S. Patent 8,080,371,"Markers for Addiction" covering the use of certain SNPs in determining the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of addiction. Implications and ContributionTwitter is a popular social media platform among young people. Results from this study highlight the pervasiveness of pro-marijuana Twitter chatter particularly among youth and African Americans and stress the need for more online marijuana prevention messages to target individuals who are most at-risk for marijuana use-associated harms. Twitter is a free-to-use social media platform that has become very popular among young people in recent years [1,2]. Twitter users can easily and instantly connect to a mass audience via Tweets that are 140 ...

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“…Crowdsourcing involves using a large network of online (i.e., virtual) workers to complete micro-tasks. Similar to methods used for this study, the methods used by Kim et al (2013) involved crowdsourcing via CrowdFlower to analyze sentiment of Tweets about U.S. healthcare reform and found a high level of agreement between trained coders from the research team and crowdsourced coders (82.4% for positive sentiment, 100% for negative sentiment).…”

Section: Coding Tweetsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“Hey Everyone, I’m Drunk.” An Evaluation of Drinking-Related Twitter Chatter

Cavazos‐Rehg

Krauss

Sowles

et al. 2015

J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs

120

102

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ABSTRACT. Objective: The promotion of drinking behaviors correlates with increased drinking behaviors and intent to drink, especially when peers are the promotion source. Similarly, online displays of peer drinking behaviors have been described as a potential type of peer pressure that might lead to alcohol misuse when the peers to whom individuals feel attached value such behaviors. Social media messages about drinking behaviors on Twitter (a popular social media platform among young people) are common but understudied. In response, and given that drinking alcohol is a widespread activity among young people, we examined Twitter chatter about drinking. Method: Tweets containing alcohol-or drinking-related keywords were collected from March 13 to April 11, 2014. We assessed a random sample (n = 5,000) of the most infl uential Tweets for sentiment, theme, and source. Results: Most alcohol-related Tweets refl ected a positive sentiment toward alcohol use, with pro-alcohol Tweets outnumbering anti-alcohol Tweets by a factor of more than 10. The most common themes of pro-drinking Tweets included references to frequent or heavy drinking behaviors and wanting/needing/ planning to drink alcohol. The most common sources of pro-alcohol Tweets were organic (i.e., noncommercial). Conclusions: Our fi ndings highlight the need for online prevention messages about drinking to counter the strong pro-alcohol presence on Twitter. However, to enhance the impact of anti-drinking messages on Twitter, it may be prudent for such Tweets to be sent by individuals who are widely followed on Twitter and during times when heavy drinking is more likely to occur (i.e., weekends, holidays). (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 76, 635-643, 2015)

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Can Tweets Replace Polls? A U.S. Health‐Care Reform Case Study

Cited by 9 publications

References 8 publications

Characterizing the Followers and Tweets of a Marijuana-Focused Twitter Handle

Characterizing the Followers and Tweets of a Marijuana-Focused Twitter Handle

Twitter Chatter About Marijuana

“Hey Everyone, I’m Drunk.” An Evaluation of Drinking-Related Twitter Chatter

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