Muenster Roxana Mika, Gangi Kai, Margolin Drew
Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States.
Department of Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States.
J Med Internet Res. 2024 Dec 9;26:e60283. doi: 10.2196/60283.
Health misinformation is abundant online and becoming an increasingly pressing concern for both oncology practitioners and patients with cancer. On social media platforms, including the popular audiovisual app TikTok, the flourishing alternative health industry is further contributing to the spread of misleading and often harmful information, endangering patients' health and outcomes and sowing distrust of the medical community. The prevalence of false and potentially dangerous treatments on a platform that is used as a quasi-search engine by young people poses a serious risk to the health of patients with cancer.
This study seeks to examine how cancer discourse on TikTok differs between alternative health and conventional medicine videos. It aims to look beyond mere facts and falsehoods that TikTok users may utter to understand the visual language and format used in the support of both misleading and truthful narratives, as well as other messages.
Using computer vision analysis and subsequent qualitative close reading of 831 TikTok videos, this study examined how alternative health and conventional medicine videos on cancer differ with regard to the visual language used. Videos were examined for the length of time and prominence in which faces are displayed, as well as for the background setting, location, and dominant color scheme.
The results show that the alt-health and conventional health samples made different use of the audiovisual affordances of TikTok. First, videos from the alternative health sample were more likely to contain a single face that was prominently featured (making up at least 7.5% of the image) for a substantial period of time (35% of the shots), with these testimonial-style videos making up 28.5% (93/326) of the sample compared to 18.6% (94/505) of the conventional medicine sample. Alternative health videos predominantly featured cool tones (P<.001) and were significantly more likely to be filmed outdoors (P<.001), whereas conventional medicine videos were more likely to be shot indoors and feature warm tones such as red, orange, or yellow.
The findings of this study contribute to an increased understanding of misinformation as not merely a matter of individual falsehoods but also a phenomenon whose effects might be transported through emotive as well as rational means. They also point to influencer practices and style being an important contributing factor in the declining health of the information environment around cancer and its treatment. The results suggest that public health efforts must extend beyond correcting false statements by injecting factual information into the online cancer discourse and look toward incorporating both visual and rational strategies.
健康方面的错误信息在网上大量存在，这对肿瘤学从业者和癌症患者来说都成为了一个日益紧迫的问题。在社交媒体平台上，包括广受欢迎的视听应用TikTok，蓬勃发展的替代健康产业进一步助长了误导性且往往有害的信息传播，危及患者的健康和治疗结果，并播下了对医疗界的不信任种子。在一个被年轻人用作准搜索引擎的平台上，虚假和潜在危险治疗方法的盛行对癌症患者的健康构成了严重风险。
本研究旨在探讨TikTok上替代健康视频和传统医学视频在癌症话题上的差异。其目的是超越TikTok用户可能说出的单纯事实和虚假信息，去理解用于支持误导性和真实叙述以及其他信息的视觉语言和形式。
通过计算机视觉分析以及随后对831个TikTok视频的定性仔细阅读，本研究考察了关于癌症的替代健康视频和传统医学视频在视觉语言使用方面的差异。研究视频中面部展示的时长和突出程度，以及背景设置、地点和主导配色方案。
结果表明，替代健康样本和传统健康样本对TikTok的视听功能有不同的运用。首先，替代健康样本的视频更有可能在相当长的一段时间内（占镜头的35%）包含一张突出展示的单一面孔（占图像的至少7.5%），这些推荐式视频在样本中占28.5%（93/326），而传统医学样本中这一比例为18.6%（94/505）。替代健康视频主要以冷色调为主（P<0.001），并且显著更有可能在户外拍摄（P<0.001），而传统医学视频更有可能在室内拍摄，并以红色、橙色或黄色等暖色调为主。
本研究的结果有助于加深对错误信息的理解，即错误信息不仅是个别虚假内容的问题，也是一种其影响可能通过情感和理性手段传播的现象。它们还指出有影响力者的做法和风格是癌症及其治疗周围信息环境健康状况下降的一个重要促成因素。结果表明，公共卫生努力必须超越通过在在线癌症话题中注入事实信息来纠正虚假陈述，而应着眼于纳入视觉和理性策略。
