Abstract
BackgroundSocial media is a powerful tool for the dissemination of health messages. However, few studies have focused on the factors that improve the influence of health messages on social media.ObjectiveTo explore the influence of goal-framing effects, information organizing, and the use of pictures or videos in health-promoting messages, we conducted a case study of Sina Weibo, a popular social media platform in China.MethodsLiterature review and expert discussion were used to determine the health themes of childhood obesity, smoking, and cancer. Web crawler technology was employed to capture data on health-promoting messages. We used the number of retweets, comments, and likes to evaluate the influence of a message. Statistical analysis was then conducted after manual coding. Specifically, binary logistic regression was used for the data analyses.ResultsWe crawled 20,799 Sina Weibo messages and selected 389 health-promoting messages for this study. Results indicated that the use of gain-framed messages could improve the influence of messages regarding childhood obesity (P<.001), smoking (P=.03), and cancer (P<.001). Statistical expressions could improve the influence of messages about childhood obesity (P=.02), smoking (P=.002), and cancer (P<.001). However, the use of videos significantly improved the influence of health-promoting messages only for the smoking-related messages (P=.009).ConclusionsThe findings suggested that gain-framed messages and statistical expressions can be successful strategies to improve the influence of messages. Moreover, appropriate pictures and videos should be added as much as possible when generating health-promoting messages.
Highlights
Overview Television, newspapers, radio, magazines, and other traditional media have long been the communication tools relied upon for health communication
The findings suggested that gain-framed messages and statistical expressions can be successful strategies to improve the influence of messages
Through literature review and the research completed by our group [25,37], we found that visuals [38,39] and statistics [39] were two important message features that can be combined with framing effects to affect the influence of health messages
Summary
Overview Television, newspapers, radio, magazines, and other traditional media have long been the communication tools relied upon for health communication. Social media has become a unique platform for health promotion due to its potential for viral messaging [7], its ability to challenge authority [8], and its diversity of users [9]. The gain- and loss-framed effects show that when health care messages emphasize the positive or negative results of an action or omission, the persuasiveness of the messages significantly differ. Previous studies have confirmed that a gain-framed message is effective in promoting the use of sunscreen and exercise activities [29]. Given the prior research [15] and the text-based message expression of Weibo [32], we posit that the gain-framed and loss-framed effects on health-promoting message dissemination on Weibo are similar to those of print media. A Weibo message that clearly expresses positive or negative consequences was regarded as framed
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