Gilmore Daniel, Radford Deondray, Haas Meghan K, Shields Morgan, Bishop Lauren, Hand Brittany
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Autism Adulthood. 2024 Mar 1;6(1):95-105. doi: 10.1089/aut.2023.0019. Epub 2024 Feb 28.
TikTok is a popular social media site for connecting with others online where many users also access and share health-related information. Previous studies have characterized information shared about specific disabilities on TikTok, but descriptions of autism-related content are lacking. Understanding the information shared about autism on TikTok is important to understanding health communication in this space, the lived experiences of autistic people, and the role that social media platforms play in building community through connection, understanding, and inclusion.
We used an open-source data scraper to identify and download videos with at least 1 million views and that used the hashtag #autism from TikTok. Using a joint inductive and deductive approach, we performed a content analysis of videos. We identified six content topics that described video content (e.g., positive social interactions and features of autism), and three categories that described video purpose (e.g., educational, experiential, and observational). We used descriptive statistics to describe characteristics of who was in the TikTok videos.
We analyzed = 678 videos. The most common content topic of TikTok videos was features of autism (39.7%), followed by marginalization (25.4%). Most videos were categorized as experiential (61.4%) or observational (31.4%) rather than educational (7.2%). Approximately 65.5% of videos featured an autistic adult and 22.6% featured an autistic child. Among videos featuring an autistic person ( = 594), most autistic people were perceived to be White (87.0%) with similar numbers of feminine (52.9%) and masculine (44.8%) presenting autistic people.
Highly viewed #autism TikTok videos primarily share autistic people's individual experiences rather than providing general education about autism. However, autistic Black, Indigenous, and people of color may have difficulty finding others that represent them along both disability and racial dimensions. Future research should investigate autistic people's motivations for using TikTok, and how #autism content shapes social discourse about autism.
TikTok是一个广受欢迎的社交媒体网站，用于在线与他人建立联系，许多用户也在该平台上获取和分享与健康相关的信息。先前的研究已经对TikTok上分享的关于特定残疾的信息进行了特征描述，但缺乏对自闭症相关内容的描述。了解TikTok上关于自闭症的信息，对于理解这个领域的健康传播、自闭症患者的生活经历以及社交媒体平台在通过联系、理解和包容建立社区中所扮演的角色至关重要。
我们使用了一个开源数据抓取工具，从TikTok上识别并下载了浏览量至少为100万且带有#自闭症标签的视频。我们采用归纳和演绎相结合的方法对视频进行了内容分析。我们确定了六个描述视频内容的主题（例如，积极的社交互动和自闭症的特征），以及三个描述视频目的的类别（例如，教育性、体验性和观察性）。我们使用描述性统计来描述TikTok视频中人物的特征。
我们分析了678个视频。TikTok视频中最常见的内容主题是自闭症的特征（39.7%），其次是边缘化（25.4%）。大多数视频被归类为体验性（61.4%）或观察性（31.4%），而非教育性（7.2%）。大约65.5%的视频以成年自闭症患者为特色，22.6%的视频以自闭症儿童为特色。在以自闭症患者为特色的视频（n = 594）中，大多数自闭症患者被认为是白人（87.0%），呈现女性特征的自闭症患者（52.9%）和呈现男性特征的自闭症患者（44.8%）数量相近。
浏览量高的#自闭症TikTok视频主要分享自闭症患者的个人经历，而非提供关于自闭症的一般教育。然而，自闭症黑人、原住民和有色人种可能难以找到在残疾和种族层面都能代表他们的人。未来的研究应调查自闭症患者使用TikTok的动机，以及#自闭症内容如何塑造关于自闭症的社会话语。
