Mental health discourse and social media: Which mechanisms of cultural power drive discourse on Twitter.

Alina Pavlova,Pauwke Berkers

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113250

Alina Pavlova, Pauwke Berkers

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113250

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Abstract

The global burden of mental health disorders has increased steadily during the past decade. Today, mental illness is the leading cause of total years lived with disability. At the same time, global mental health policies and budgets fall short of addressing the societal burden as mental health discourse languishes in the shadows due to stigma. As social media have become an increasingly popular source of information, they create opportunities as well as threats for mental health discourse. On the one hand, social media can help to bring awareness to stigmatized topics as they give marginalized members of society the possibility to share experiences and voice their discontent. On the other hand, mental health discourse on social media may lead to stigmatization. To date, little is known about social media mental health discourse and what drives it. This study addresses these research gaps by (1) mapping the mental health discourse on Twitter and (2) analyzing mechanisms of cultural power through which some mental health topics take prevalence over the others. Drawing on Twitter data, this research employs innovative methods of topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and panel data regression analyses. Theoretically, it combines, in a multidisciplinary fashion, concepts such as emotional energy and cognitive focus from sociology and bandwagon behavior from economics. Our findings show that low-cost attention mechanisms are ineffective in fostering online mental health discourse, whereas emotional energy and discursive variability have a positive influence by engaging audiences, creating online solidarity, and speaking to worldviews of audiences from different walks of life. Social media mental health discourse is also shown to be quite diverse and more stigma-neutral than such discourse in traditional media.

Highlights

One in four people in the developed world is affected by mental illness (WHO, 2016; Whiteford et al, 2015)
While favoriting and/or retweeting can be a reflection of an actual commitment to mental health issues, we argue that actual replies show a greater engagement and are more likely to encourage interac tion
We have empirically demonstrated that mental health discourse is growing, both in absolute terms and relative to total Twitter discourse

Summary

Introduction

One in four people in the developed world is affected by mental illness (WHO, 2016; Whiteford et al, 2015). 25 cents in every dollar are lost from the global economy due to mental illness as productivity forgone (Chisholm et al, 2016). Creating positive awareness about stigmatized topics, such as that of mental health, is not considered to be easy (Wahl, 1997). The rising popularity of social media as a source of information creates opportu nities as well as threats for mental health discourse. The internet can provide a safe place characterized by anonymity and soli darity where marginalized individuals can voice their opinions, express frustrations, and share knowledge, creating positive awareness and cultural change (Leung and Lee, 2014; Bail, 2016). Online environments are said to have a ‘dark side’, exemplified by heightened stigma from hate speech and cyberbullying (Campbell, 2005; Beckman et al, 2019)

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