Abstract
BackgroundOver the past decade, there has been an increasing secular trend in the number of studies on social media and health.ObjectiveThe purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the content and characteristics of TikTok videos that are related to an important aspect of community mitigation—the use of masks as a method for interrupting the transmission of SARS-CoV-2.MethodsIn total, 100 trending videos with the hashtag #WearAMask (ie, a campaign on TikTok), along with 32 videos that were posted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and involved masks in any way (ie, all related WHO videos at the time of this study), were included in our sample. We collected the metadata of each post, and created content categories based on fact sheets that were provided by the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We used these fact sheets to code the characteristics of mask use.ResultsVideos that were posted on TikTok and had the hashtag #WearAMask garnered almost 500 million views, and videos that were posted by the WHO garnered almost 57 million views. Although the ratio of the number of trending #WearAMask videos to the number of WHO videos was around 3:1, the #WearAMask videos received almost 10 times as many cumulative views as the WHO videos. In total, 68% (68/100) of the trending #WearAMask videos involved humor and garnered over 355 million cumulative views. However, only 9% (3/32) of the WHO videos involved humor. Furthermore, 27% (27/100) of the trending #WearAMask videos involved dance and garnered over 130 million cumulative views, whereas none of the WHO videos involved dance.ConclusionsThis study is one of the first to describe how TikTok is being used to mitigate the community spread of COVID-19 by promoting mask use. Due to the platform’s incredible reach, TikTok has great potential in conveying important public health messages to various segments of the population.
Highlights
As of November 30, 2020, there have been 62,363,527 COVID-19 cases and 1,456,687 deaths from COVID-19, and 13,082,877 cases and 263,946 deaths have been reported in the United States [1]
The ratio of the number of trending #WearAMask videos to the number of World Health Organization (WHO) videos was 3:1, the #WearAMask videos received almost 10 times as many cumulative views as the WHO videos
The 100 trending TikTok videos on mask use that were reviewed in this study were collectively viewed almost 500 million times, which indicates the immense popularity of this emerging social media platform
Summary
As of November 30, 2020, there have been 62,363,527 COVID-19 cases and 1,456,687 deaths from COVID-19, and 13,082,877 cases and 263,946 deaths have been reported in the United States [1]. The sheer volume of information that is being generated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been classified as an “infodemic” by the World Health Organization (WHO) [3]. Methods: In total, 100 trending videos with the hashtag #WearAMask (ie, a campaign on TikTok), along with 32 videos that were posted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and involved masks in any way (ie, all related WHO videos at the time of this study), were included in our sample. We collected the metadata of each post, and created content categories based on fact sheets that were provided by the WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention We used these fact sheets to code the characteristics of mask use. 68% (68/100) of the trending #WearAMask videos involved humor and garnered over 355 million cumulative views. Due to the platform’s incredible reach, TikTok has great potential in conveying important public health messages to various segments of the population
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