 Emotional feedback and the viral spread of social media messages about autism spectrum disordersC.A. Bail American Journal of Public Health, 2016, vol. 106, issue 7, 1173-1180 Abstract: Objective. To determine whether exchanges of emotional language between health advocacy organizations and social media users predict the spread of posts about autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Methods. I created a Facebook application that tracked views of ASD advocacy organizations' posts between July 19, 2011, and December 18, 2012. I evaluated the association between exchanges of emotional language and viral views of posts, controlling for additional characteristics of posts, the organizations that produced them, the social media users who viewed them, and the broader social environment. Results. Exchanges of emotional language between advocacy organizations and social media users are strongly associated with viral views of posts. Conclusions. Social media outreach may be more successful if organizations invite emotional dialogue instead of simply conveying information about ASDs. Yet exchanges of angry language may contribute to the viral spread of misinformation, such as the rumor that vaccines cause ASDs. Keywords: autism; emotion; health education; human; procedures; psychology; social media; statistics and numerical data, Autism Spectrum Disorder; Emotions; Health Education; Humans; Social Media (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2016.303181_5 Access Statistics for this article American Journal of Public Health is currently edited by Alfredo Morabia More articles in American Journal of Public Health from American Public Health Association |
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