文章基本信息

标题：Emotional Feedback and the Viral Spread of Social Media Messages About Autism Spectrum Disorders
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作者：Christopher A. Bail
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2016
卷号：106
期号：7
页码：1173-1180
DOI：10.2105/AJPH.2016.303181
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：Objective. To determine whether exchanges of emotional language between health advocacy organizations and social media users predict the spread of posts about autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Methods. I created a Facebook application that tracked views of ASD advocacy organizations' posts between July 19, 2011, and December 18, 2012. I evaluated the association between exchanges of emotional language and viral views of posts, controlling for additional characteristics of posts, the organizations that produced them, the social media users who viewed them, and the broader social environment. Results. Exchanges of emotional language between advocacy organizations and social media users are strongly associated with viral views of posts. Conclusions. Social media outreach may be more successful if organizations invite emotional dialogue instead of simply conveying information about ASDs. Yet exchanges of angry language may contribute to the viral spread of misinformation, such as the rumor that vaccines cause ASDs. Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) affect 1 in 68 children in the United States—up from 1 in 2500 during the 1960s. More than $241 billion is spent annually on services for this rapidly growing population. 1,2 Numerous advocacy organizations work to educate the public about ASDs, raise funds, and lobby for new policies. 3–5 Social media sites have become a primary forum for public outreach about ASDs and other public health issues. 6–8 According to recent surveys, 97% of advocacy organizations and 74% of all Americans use social media. 9,10 These sites are popular because they create the potential for health advocacy campaigns to “go viral,” or inspire large groups of social media users to share advocacy organizations’ messages across their own social networks. Social media are particularly instrumental for public discussion of ASDs because virtual interaction alleviates the social anxiety of many who are on the spectrum and enables broader communities affected by this issue to come together without geographic constraints. 11 Yet the rapidly expanding conversation about ASDs on social media faces fierce competition for public attention. The typical social media user views multiple messages from advocacy organizations, friends, family members, colleagues, businesses, celebrities, and other public figures each day. Although a growing number of studies has examined whether social media interventions transform health behaviors in small populations, health communication scholars are only beginning to develop theories of why certain social media posts go viral. 6 This lack of research is noteworthy because social media are fundamentally interactive and therefore cannot be analyzed via conventional media theories that posit a 1-way channel between advocacy organizations and their audiences. 6,7,12,13 I examined the participatory nature of social media by asking whether exchanges of emotion between advocacy organizations and social media users increase viral views of posts about ASDs. Numerous studies suggest that emotional public health campaigns are more likely to reduce negative health behaviors than are those that employ dispassionate, scientific language. 14 So-called fear campaigns, for example, have created substantial shifts in public knowledge about lung cancer, HIV, and many other public health issues by highlighting the grave consequences of negative health behaviors, such as smoking and unprotected sex. 15 Emotional appeals have a powerful priming effect on cognitive processes, affect the depth of mental processing, and enhance information recall. 16 Parallel literature in sociology and social psychology indicates that the priming effect of emotions on cognitive processes is even more powerful when emotions are exchanged in social settings. 17–19 Emotional appeals tend to provoke emotional reactions that amplify the emotional bias of cognitive processes in turn. 20 The potential for such emotional feedback is rife in social media sites, which enable the rapid spread of emotional conversations across large populations. I hypothesized that (1) emotional posts produced by ASD advocacy organizations would provoke emotional comments from their fans—or those who elect to receive regular messages from the organization in their news feed—and (2) these emotional comments would attract viral views—or views of the message by social media users who are friends or followers of those who comment but not the organization that produced the message (Figure A, available as a supplement to the online version of this article at http://www.ajph.org ).