School of Journalism, University of Missouri.
Health Commun. 2021 Sep;36(10):1231-1241. doi: 10.1080/10410236.2020.1749354. Epub 2020 Apr 9.
Social media is an increasingly popular tool for disseminating health research findings to members of the general public and may contribute to improving the effectiveness of science communication. This study was designed to investigate how retransmission (i.e., social media content shared by a familiar, credible organization) and modality (i.e., how the message is delivered) influence the effectiveness of communicating health research findings via social media. The findings from a 2 (source) X 3 (modality) X 2 (topic) mixed factorial design experiment (= 517) indicated that source had a significant effect, such that posts that were retransmitted by a credible organization resulted in greater perceived source credibility, greater perceived message effectiveness, and greater likelihood of an individual to engage with the post on Facebook. Modality significantly increased perceived source credibility and perceived message effectiveness when posts were retransmitted by a credible source, indicating that modality made a difference when messages were elaborated as a function of the retransmission. Also, the topic of the post had a significant impact on the study's dependent variables of interest. Overall, the findings illustrate the potential of retransmission and modality as message features that can improve communication of health research findings on social media. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
社交媒体是向普通大众传播健康研究发现的一种越来越流行的工具，它可能有助于提高科学传播的效果。本研究旨在调查再传播（即由熟悉且可信的组织分享的社交媒体内容）和模式（即信息传递的方式）如何影响通过社交媒体传达健康研究发现的效果。一项 2（来源）X 3（模式）X 2（主题）混合因子设计实验（=517）的结果表明，来源有显著影响，即由可信组织转发的帖子会导致更高的感知来源可信度、更高的感知信息有效性，以及个体更有可能在 Facebook 上参与该帖子。当可信来源转发帖子时，模式会显著提高感知来源可信度和感知信息有效性，这表明当信息作为再传播的功能被详细说明时，模式会产生差异。此外，帖子的主题对研究的相关因变量有重大影响。总体而言，这些发现说明了再传播和模式作为信息特征的潜力，这些特征可以提高社交媒体上健康研究发现的传播效果。讨论了理论和实践意义。
