Dataset Information

E-Cigarette Advocates on Twitter: Content Analysis of Vaping-Related Tweets.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:As the majority of Twitter content is publicly available, the platform has become a rich data source for public health surveillance, providing insights into emergent phenomena, such as vaping. Although there is a growing body of literature that has examined the content of vaping-related tweets, less is known about the people who generate and disseminate these messages and the role of e-cigarette advocates in the promotion of these devices. OBJECTIVE:This study aimed to identify key conversation trends and patterns over time, and discern the core voices, message frames, and sentiment surrounding e-cigarette discussions on Twitter. METHODS:A random sample of data were collected from Australian Twitter users who referenced at least one of 15 identified e-cigarette related keywords during 2012, 2014, 2016, or 2018. Data collection was facilitated by TrISMA (Tracking Infrastructure for Social Media Analysis) and analyzed by content analysis. RESULTS:A sample of 4432 vaping-related tweets posted and retweeted by Australian users was analyzed. Positive sentiment (3754/4432, 84.70%) dominated the discourse surrounding e-cigarettes, and vape retailers and manufacturers (1161/4432, 26.20%), the general public (1079/4432, 24.35%), and e-cigarette advocates (1038/4432, 23.42%) were the most prominent posters. Several tactics were used by e-cigarette advocates to communicate their beliefs, including attempts to frame e-cigarettes as safer than traditional cigarettes, imply that federal government agencies lack sufficient competence or evidence for the policies they endorse about vaping, and denounce as propaganda "gateway" claims of youth progressing from e-cigarettes to combustible tobacco. Some of the most common themes presented in tweets were advertising or promoting e-cigarette products (2040/4432, 46.03%), promoting e-cigarette use or intent to use (970/4432, 21.89%), and discussing the potential of e-cigarettes to be used as a smoking cessation aid or tobacco alternative (716/4432, 16.16%), as well as the perceived health and safety benefits and consequences of e-cigarette use (681/4432, 15.37%). CONCLUSIONS:Australian Twitter content does not reflect the country's current regulatory approach to e-cigarettes. Rather, the conversation on Twitter generally encourages e-cigarette use, promotes vaping as a socially acceptable practice, discredits scientific evidence of health risks, and rallies around the idea that e-cigarettes should largely be outside the bounds of health policy. The one-sided nature of the discussion is concerning, as is the lack of disclosure and transparency, especially among vaping enthusiasts who dominate the majority of e-cigarette discussions on Twitter, where it is unclear if comments are endorsed, sanctioned, or even supported by the industry.

SUBMITTER: McCausland K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7593865 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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E-Cigarette Advocates on Twitter: Content Analysis of Vaping-Related Tweets.

McCausland Kahlia K Maycock Bruce B Leaver Tama T Wolf Katharina K Freeman Becky B Jancey Jonine J

JMIR public health and surveillance 20201014 4

<h4>Background</h4>As the majority of Twitter content is publicly available, the platform has become a rich data source for public health surveillance, providing insights into emergent phenomena, such as vaping. Although there is a growing body of literature that has examined the content of vaping-related tweets, less is known about the people who generate and disseminate these messages and the role of e-cigarette advocates in the promotion of these devices.<h4>Objective</h4>This study aimed to ...[more]

PMID: 33052130

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Project description:BackgroundThe sale of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) containing nicotine is prohibited in all Australian states and territories; yet, the growing availability and convenience of the internet enable the promotion and exposure of e-cigarettes across countries. Social media's increasing pervasiveness has provided a powerful avenue to market products and influence social norms and risk behaviors. At present, there is no evidence of how e-cigarettes and vaping are promoted on social media in Australia.ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate how e-cigarettes are portrayed and promoted on Twitter through a content analysis of vaping-related tweets containing an image posted and retweeted by Australian users and how the portrayal and promotion have emerged and trended over time.MethodsIn total, we analyzed 1303 tweets and accompanying images from 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 collected through the Tracking Infrastructure for Social Media Analysis (TrISMA), a contemporary technical and organizational infrastructure for the tracking of public communication by Australian users of social media, via a list of 15 popular e-cigarette-related terms.ResultsDespite Australia's cautious approach toward e-cigarettes and the limited evidence supporting them as an efficacious smoking cessation aid, it is evident that there is a concerted effort by some Twitter users to promote these devices as a health-conducive (91/129, 70.5%), smoking cessation product (266/1303, 20.41%). Further, Twitter is being used in an attempt to circumvent Australian regulation and advocate for a more liberal approach to personal vaporizers (90/1303, 6.90%). A sizeable proportion of posts was dedicated to selling or promoting vape products (347/1303, 26.63%), and 19.95% (260/1303) were found to be business listings. These posts used methods to try and expand their clientele further than immediate followers by touting competitions and giveaways, with those wanting to enter having to perform a sequence of steps such as liking, tagging, and reposting, ultimately exposing the post among the user's network and to others not necessarily interested in vaping.ConclusionsThe borderless nature of social media presents a clear challenge for enforcing Article 13 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which requires all ratifying nations to implement a ban on tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship. Countering the advertising and promotion of these products is a public health challenge that will require cross-border cooperation with other World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control parties. Further research aimed at developing strategies to counter the advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes is therefore needed.

Project description:BackgroundThe cannabis product and regulatory landscape is changing in the United States. Against the backdrop of these changes, there have been increasing reports on health-related motives for cannabis use and adverse events from its use. The use of social media data in monitoring cannabis-related health conversations may be useful to state- and federal-level regulatory agencies as they grapple with identifying cannabis safety signals in a comprehensive and scalable fashion.ObjectiveThis study attempted to determine the extent to which a medical dictionary-the Unified Medical Language System Consumer Health Vocabulary-could identify cannabis-related motivations for use and health consequences of cannabis use based on Twitter posts in 2020.MethodsTwitter posts containing cannabis-related terms were obtained from January 1 to August 31, 2020. Each post from the sample (N=353,353) was classified into at least 1 of 17 a priori categories of common health-related topics by using a rule-based classifier. Each category was defined by the terms in the medical dictionary. A subsample of posts (n=1092) was then manually annotated to help validate the rule-based classifier and determine if each post pertained to health-related motivations for cannabis use, perceived adverse health effects from its use, or neither.ResultsThe validation process indicated that the medical dictionary could identify health-related conversations in 31.2% (341/1092) of posts. Specifically, 20.4% (223/1092) of posts were accurately identified as posts related to a health-related motivation for cannabis use, while 10.8% (118/1092) of posts were accurately identified as posts related to a health-related consequence from cannabis use. The health-related conversations about cannabis use included those about issues with the respiratory system, stress to the immune system, and gastrointestinal issues, among others.ConclusionsThe mining of social media data may prove helpful in improving the surveillance of cannabis products and their adverse health effects. However, future research needs to develop and validate a dictionary and codebook that capture cannabis use-specific health conversations on Twitter.

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Project description:Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) (also known as ‘e-cigarettes’) can support smoking cessation, although the long-term health impacts are not yet known. In 2019, a cluster of lung injury cases in the USA emerged that were ostensibly associated with ENDS use. Subsequent investigations revealed a link with vitamin E acetate, an additive used in some ENDS liquid products containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This became known as the EVALI (E-cigarette or Vaping product use Associated Lung Injury) outbreak. While few cases were reported in the UK, the EVALI outbreak intensified attention on ENDS in general worldwide. We aimed to describe and explore public commentary and discussion on Twitter immediately before, during and following the peak of the EVALI outbreak using text mining techniques. Specifically, topic modelling, operationalised using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) models, was used to discern discussion topics in 189,658 tweets about ENDS (collected April–December 2019). Individual tweets and Twitter users were assigned to their dominant topics and countries respectively to enable international comparisons. A 10-topic LDA model fit the data best. We organised the ten topics into three broad themes for the purposes of reporting: informal vaping discussion; vaping policy discussion and EVALI news; and vaping commerce. Following EVALI, there were signs that informal vaping discussion topics decreased while discussion topics about vaping policy and the relative health risks and benefits of ENDS increased, not limited to THC products. Though subsequently attributed to THC products, the EVALI outbreak disrupted online public discourses about ENDS generally, amplifying health and policy commentary. There was a relatively stronger presence of commercially oriented tweets among UK Twitter users compared to USA users. Highlights • In 2019 there was an e-cigarete related lung injury outbreak in the USA.• The outbreak prompted discussions among Twiter users about e-cigarete benefits and risks.• We analysed 189,658 tweets about e-cigaretes using machine learning models.• Topics of tweets addressed vaping policy, sales, and the relative health risks and benefits.• The lung injury outbreak may have diversified online discourses about e-cigaretes.

Project description:BackgroundDementia is a prevalent disorder among adults and often subjects an individual and his or her family. Social media websites may serve as a platform to raise awareness for dementia and allow researchers to explore health-related data.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to utilize Twitter, a social media website, to examine the content and location of tweets containing the keyword "dementia" to better understand the reasons why individuals discuss dementia. We adopted an approach that analyzed user location, user category, and tweet content subcategories to classify large publicly available datasets.MethodsA total of 398 tweets were collected using the Twitter search application programming interface with the keyword "dementia," circulated between January and February 2018. Twitter users were categorized into 4 categories: general public, health care field, advocacy organization, and public broadcasting. Tweets posted by "general public" users were further subcategorized into 5 categories: mental health advocate, affected persons, stigmatization, marketing, and other. Placement into the categories was done through thematic analysis.ResultsA total of 398 tweets were written by 359 different screen names from 28 different countries. The largest number of Twitter users were from the United States and the United Kingdom. Within the United States, the largest number of users were from California and Texas. The majority (281/398, 70.6%) of Twitter users were categorized into the "general public" category. Content analysis of tweets from the "general public" category revealed stigmatization (113/281, 40.2%) and mental health advocacy (102/281, 36.3%) as the most common themes. Among tweets from California and Texas, California had more stigmatization tweets, while Texas had more mental health advocacy tweets.ConclusionsThemes from the content of tweets highlight the mixture of the political climate and the supportive network present on Twitter. The ability to use Twitter to combat stigma and raise awareness of mental health indicates the benefits that can potentially be facilitated via the platform, but negative stigmatizing tweets may interfere with the effectiveness of this social support.

Dataset Information

E-Cigarette Advocates on Twitter: Content Analysis of Vaping-Related Tweets.

Publications

E-Cigarette Advocates on Twitter: Content Analysis of Vaping-Related Tweets.

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