Rose Shyanika W, Jo Catherine L, Binns Steven, Buenger Melissa, Emery Sherry, Ribisl Kurt M
The Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Truth Initiative, Washington, DC, United States.
Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2017 Feb 27;19(2):e56. doi: 10.2196/jmir.5694.
Menthol cigarettes are used disproportionately by African American, female, and adolescent smokers. Twitter is also used disproportionately by minority and younger populations, providing a unique window into conversations reflecting social norms, behavioral intentions, and sentiment toward menthol cigarettes.
Our purpose was to identify the content and frequency of conversations about menthol cigarettes, including themes, populations, user smoking status, other tobacco or substances, tweet characteristics, and sentiment. We also examined differences in menthol cigarette sentiment by prevalent categories, which allowed us to assess potential perceptions, misperceptions, and social norms about menthol cigarettes on Twitter. This approach can inform communication about these products, particularly to subgroups who are at risk for menthol cigarette use.
Through a combination of human and machine classification, we identified 94,627 menthol cigarette-relevant tweets from February 1, 2012 to January 31, 2013 (1 year) from over 47 million tobacco-related messages gathered prospectively from the Twitter Firehose of all public tweets and metadata. Then, 4 human coders evaluated a random sample of 7000 tweets for categories, including sentiment toward menthol cigarettes.
We found that 47.98% (3194/6657) of tweets expressed positive sentiment, while 40.26% (2680/6657) were negative toward menthol cigarettes. The majority of tweets by likely smokers (2653/4038, 65.70%) expressed positive sentiment, while 91.2% (320/351) of nonsmokers and 71.7% (91/127) of former smokers indicated negative views. Positive views toward menthol cigarettes were predominant in tweets that discussed addiction or craving, marijuana, smoking, taste or sensation, song lyrics, and tobacco industry or marketing or tweets that were commercial in nature. Negative views toward menthol were more common in tweets about smoking cessation, health, African Americans, women, and children and adolescents-largely due to expression of negative stereotypes associated with these groups' use of menthol cigarettes.
Examinations of public opinions toward menthol cigarettes through social media can help to inform the framing of public communication about menthol cigarettes, particularly in light of potential regulation by the European Union, US Food and Drug Administration, other jurisdictions, and localities.
非裔美国人、女性和青少年吸烟者对薄荷醇香烟的使用比例过高。少数族裔和年轻人群体使用推特的比例也过高，这为反映社会规范、行为意图以及对薄荷醇香烟态度的对话提供了一个独特的窗口。
我们的目的是确定关于薄荷醇香烟的对话内容和频率，包括主题、人群、用户吸烟状况、其他烟草或物质、推文特征以及态度。我们还按流行类别研究了对薄荷醇香烟态度的差异，这使我们能够评估推特上关于薄荷醇香烟的潜在认知、误解和社会规范。这种方法可为这些产品的宣传提供参考，尤其是针对有使用薄荷醇香烟风险的亚群体。
通过人工和机器分类相结合的方式，我们从2012年2月1日至2013年1月31日（1年）期间从推特全量公开推文和元数据的“推特消防水龙带”中前瞻性收集的4700多万条与烟草相关信息中，识别出94,627条与薄荷醇香烟相关的推文。然后，4名人工编码员对7000条推文的随机样本进行分类评估，包括对薄荷醇香烟的态度。
我们发现47.98%（3194/6657）的推文表达了积极态度，而40.26%（2680/6657）的推文对薄荷醇香烟持消极态度。可能吸烟者发布的推文中，大多数（2653/4038，65.70%）表达了积极态度，而非吸烟者中有91.2%（320/351）以及曾经吸烟者中有71.7%（91/127）表示持消极看法。在讨论成瘾或渴望、大麻、吸烟、味道或感觉、歌曲歌词、烟草行业或营销的推文中，或者本质上是商业性质的推文中，对薄荷醇香烟的积极看法占主导。在关于戒烟、健康、非裔美国人、女性以及儿童和青少年的推文中，对薄荷醇的消极看法更为常见——这主要是由于与这些群体使用薄荷醇香烟相关的负面刻板印象的表达。
通过社交媒体对公众对薄荷醇香烟的看法进行研究，有助于为薄荷醇香烟的公共宣传提供参考，特别是鉴于欧盟、美国食品药品监督管理局、其他司法管辖区和地方可能实施的监管。
