Cho Hyunyi, Silver Nathan, Na Kilhoe, Adams Dinah, Luong Kate T, Song Chi
School of Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States.
Futurety LLC, Columbus, OH, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2018 Sep 5;20(9):e10501. doi: 10.2196/10501.
Instagram is increasingly becoming a platform on which visual communication of cancer takes place, but few studies have investigated the content and effects. In particular, a paucity of research has evaluated the effects of visual communication of cancer on participative engagement outcomes.
The objective of our study was to investigate cancer-related beliefs and emotions shared on Instagram and to examine their effects on participative engagement outcomes including likes, comments, and social support.
This study analyzed the content of 441 posts of #melanomasucks on Instagram and assessed the effects of the content characteristics on outcomes, including the number of likes and comments and types of social support using group least absolute shrinkage and selection operator logistic regression.
Posts about controlling melanoma were most frequent (271/441, 61.5%), followed by 240 (54.4%) posts about outcomes of having melanoma. Ninety posts (20.4%) were about the causes of melanoma. A greater number of posts expressed positive (159/441, 36.1%) than negative emotions (100/441, 22.7%). Eighty posts (18.1%) expressed hope, making it the most frequently expressed emotion; 49 posts expressed fear (11.1%), 46 were humorous (10.4%), and 46 showed sadness (10.4%). Posts about self behavior as a cause of melanoma decreased likes (P<.001) and social support comments (P=.048). Posts about physical consequences of melanoma decreased likes (P=.02) but increased comments (P<.001) and emotional social support (P<.001); posts about melanoma treatment experience increased comments (P=.03) and emotional social support (P<.001). None of the expressions of positive emotions increased likes, comments, or social support. Expression of anger increased the number of likes (P<.001) but those about fear (P<.001) and joy (P=.006) decreased the number of likes. Posts about fear (P=.003) and sadness (P=.003) increased emotional social support. Posts showing images of melanoma or its treatment on the face or body parts made up 21.8% (96/441) of total posts. Inclusion of images increased the number of comments (P=.001).
To our knowledge, this is the first investigation of the content and effects of user-generated visual cancer communication on social media. The findings show where the self-expressive and social engagement functions of #melanomasucks converge and diverge, providing implications for extending research on the commonsense model of illness and for developing conceptual frameworks explaining participative engagement on social media.
照片墙（Instagram）日益成为癌症视觉传播的平台，但很少有研究调查其内容及影响。尤其是，鲜有研究评估癌症视觉传播对参与性参与结果的影响。
我们研究的目的是调查在照片墙上分享的与癌症相关的信念和情绪，并检验它们对包括点赞、评论和社会支持在内的参与性参与结果的影响。
本研究分析了照片墙上#黑色素瘤糟透了#的441条帖子的内容，并使用组套索逻辑回归评估内容特征对结果的影响，包括点赞和评论的数量以及社会支持的类型。
关于控制黑色素瘤的帖子最为常见（271/441，61.5%），其次是关于患黑色素瘤结果的240条（54.4%）帖子。90条（20.4%）帖子是关于黑色素瘤的病因。表达积极情绪的帖子数量（159/441，36.1%）多于消极情绪的帖子（100/441，22.7%）。80条（18.1%）帖子表达了希望，使其成为最常表达的情绪；49条帖子表达了恐惧（11.1%），46条具有幽默性（10.4%），46条表现出悲伤（10.4%）。将自身行为作为黑色素瘤病因的帖子减少了点赞数（P<0.001）和社会支持评论数（P=0.048）。关于黑色素瘤身体后果的帖子减少了点赞数（P=0.02），但增加了评论数（P<0.001）和情感社会支持（P<0.001）；关于黑色素瘤治疗经历的帖子增加了评论数（P=0.03）和情感社会支持（P<0.001）。积极情绪的表达均未增加点赞、评论或社会支持。愤怒情绪的表达增加了点赞数（P<0.001），但恐惧（P<0.001）和喜悦（P=0.006）情绪的表达减少了点赞数。关于恐惧（P=0.003）和悲伤（P=0.003）情绪的帖子增加了情感社会支持。展示面部或身体部位黑色素瘤或其治疗图像的帖子占总帖子数的21.8%（96/441）。包含图像增加了评论数（P=0.001）。
据我们所知，这是首次对用户生成的癌症视觉传播在社交媒体上的内容及影响进行的调查。研究结果表明了#黑色素瘤糟透了#的自我表达和社会参与功能的异同，为拓展疾病常识模型的研究以及开发解释社交媒体上参与性参与的概念框架提供了启示。
