Portrayal of sunscreen in traditional and social media

Abstract

Background News and social media provide a valuable channel for communicating health information to the public, recommending methods of prevention, and decreasing risk of illness or disease by influencing public behavior. The aim of this study was to understand public perception towards sunscreen by determining the content and context of sunscreen information portrayed in traditional and social media (Twitter).Methods We extracted and analyzed all English tweets containing the word sunscreen, inclusive of #sunscreen, in the United States and Canada from May to August 2019. We used content and sentiment analysis to compare the engagement, accuracy, sentiment, and tweet features of tweets. Additionally, we collected all Canadian news articles on the subject of sunscreen published between January 2009 and June 2019, and analyzed for themes and tone.Results Traditional media demonstrated an overall positive representation of sunscreen (450 articles, 77% of the total), mainly providing tips on safe usage and application. Articles that negatively portrayed sunscreen (68, 12%) focused on sunscreen recalls or adverse effects. The majority (486, 83%) of articles were published in summer months and were focused on seasonal context. Among the verifiable tweets (395 of 8,924 total), 70% contained accurate information and 30% contained inaccurate information. Most (84%) of the tweets showed positive sentiment towards sunscreen, 11% had mixed sentiment, and 5% showed negative sentiment. The most common theme among the accurate tweets was ‘tips and recommendations’ (56%) while the most common theme among inaccurate tweets was ‘personal story’ (62%). Inaccurate tweets received twice the engagement of accurate tweets. The most common hashtags were #summer, #skincare, #sunburn, #beach, and #sunshine.Conclusions The frequency of sunscreen misinformation on Twitter and in traditional media is not as large of a problem as for other topics, although misinformation received twice the engagement of accurate information on Twitter.