Social Media Discourse Research Articles

American presidential campaign and ageism.

Ageism is still acceptable in our society, as age-focused criticism during the last American presidential campaign shows. Media and social media discourse on ageism, sexism, and racism shows the need of raising the awareness of ageism. We present Eugene Braunwald as an example of excellence at an advanced age. Dr. Braunwald, aged 95, has just published his article number 1,618. Preventing and counteracting ageism should be an objective of health-care workers, journalists, governments, companies, and civil society organizations. Some of our current clinical guidelines and medical care protocols might discriminate the elderly. To overcome age bias we must educate politicians, physicians, and the public. We propose some measures to fight against this type of discrimination, as asking politicians about age/aging/ ageism, promoting clinical trials in older patients, and avoiding the use of age alone in the decision-making processes.

Harnessing text information for enhanced hurricane resilience and public engagement: Unveiling disaster perspectives through social media

The recent disaster by hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Mexico, exemplifies how natural disasters, particularly hurricanes, can often arrive with a force that defies prediction despite technological advancements. Their impact, coupled with secondary disasters, underscores the urgency for efficient preemptive measures. Resilience research in the face of such calamities necessitates the creation of a safeguard before incurring irreversible losses. This research leverages big data, explicitly harnessing information obtained from social media about hurricanes, to bolster the efficacy of hurricane response efforts. The focus lies in amplifying the dissemination of adequate warnings and enhancing rescue operations. Concurrently, the research aims to delve into potential disaster rescue suggestions by tracking and analyzing high-interaction discussions on social media — X. This exploration seeks to unveil public focal points during hurricane disasters and identify valuable perspectives for future disaster response strategies. The research findings show that dynamic public discussions on X failed to adequately focus on crucial aspects such as hurricane rescue and warnings. Instead, certain discussions tended to target specific groups and individuals. By unveiling these trends, this research highlights the need to develop a nuanced understanding of interpreting and engaging with social media discussions during significant hurricane events.

Trends and Public Perception of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging: A Social Media Analysis.

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging has generated significant interest and debate among healthcare professionals, researchers, and the general public. This study aims to explore trends and public perception of AI in medical imaging by analyzing social media discussions. Using a retrospective content analysis approach, social media posts from X (formerly known as Twitter) and Reddit were collected, covering discussions from 2019 to 2024. A total of 1,022 posts were analyzed after data cleaning, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine sentiment, themes, and keyword frequencies. The sentiment analysis revealed that 55% of the comments expressed positive sentiments towards AI in medical imaging, emphasizing its potential to enhance diagnostic accuracy and efficiency. Neutral sentiments accounted for 35% of the posts, while 10% expressed negative sentiments, primarily focusing on concerns related to job displacement, ethical issues, and data privacy. Thematic analysis identified four primary themes: ethical and privacy concerns, job displacement, trust and reliability, and workflow efficiency. Keyword frequency analysis highlighted significant discussions around AI, imaging, and radiology. The results underscore both the optimism and concerns associated with AI in medical imaging, emphasizing the need for ongoing dialogue among technology developers, healthcare providers, and the public. Addressing ethical and privacy concerns, and integrating AI responsibly into clinical workflows, is crucial for maximizing its benefits and minimizing potential risks. These findings provide valuable insights into public perceptions and inform strategies for the effective and ethical implementation of AI technologies in healthcare.

ChatGPT in the public eye: Ethical principles and generative concerns in social media discussions

With ChatGPT’s rapid adoption, concerns regarding generative artificial intelligence (AI) have shifted from theoretical to practical. Drawing upon the “algorithmic imaginary” framework from critical algorithm studies and the anthropological concept of “ordinary ethics,” we analyzed Twitter discourse during ChatGPT’s initial deployment, examining 368,359 tweets. Our analysis identified five topics reflecting functional and critical aspects of ChatGPT. We specifically point to two topics with a critical perspective: “Ethics” and “Concerns.” The first aligns with scholarly discussions in AI ethics on fairness and transparency, while the second focuses on ChatGPT’s generative capabilities. This highlights an emerging trend: While the academic discussion on AI ethics has gained popularity, especially in scrutinizing ChatGPT, the conversation is now expanding to more nuanced ethical deliberations. We analyzed the posts’ engagement and sentiment over time, demonstrating the AI ethics community’s influence in addressing the potential and harms of generative AI systems.

Augmenting surveys with social media discourse on the workings of democracy from a cross-national perspective

This paper introduces an unsupervised framework that illustrates how insights gathered from opinion surveys regarding the functionality of democracy can be connected to social media messages of politicians on an international scale. By concentrating on the influence of social media messages from elected officials, the study adopts a “top-down” theoretical approach that links citizens’ attitudes towards democracy with the viewpoints about democracy expressed by politicians within social media discourses. Using a word embedding classification strategy, democracy-related themes are extracted from politicians’ messages. The research is conducted across 11 European countries, namely, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Switzerland is also included in the study because of its direct democracy system. The 10th round of the European Social Survey serves as the basis for assessing citizens’ democratic attitudes. The study encompasses two main analytical segments. First, aggregated analyses conducted at the country level reveal the degree of alignment between prominent democracy-related themes present in politicians’ discourse and citizens’ perceived significance of these same themes. Second, individual-level connections between social media data and survey respondents are established through their preferred political party (or orientation). Variable importance analysis is subsequently applied to explore which democracy-related themes conveyed by politicians hold significance in predicting public contentment with democracy.

Consumerist discourses on social media and language teacher educator identity tensions

AbstractThis study investigates the impact of social media discourses, espoused by neoliberal and consumerist ideologies, on a language teacher educator's (LTE) identity negotiation. Through a collaborative case study, it examines Hassan's (the second author) experiences with social media in the Iranian English language teaching (ELT) context over three years. The data consist of extensive email discussions and four online meetings between the authors over one year. The analysis of Hassan's narratives reveals dominant social media discourses emphasizing sameness, omniscience, and commercialized luxurious lifestyles. These discourses often equate social media visibility with professional qualifications, pressuring Hassan to conform to trends that conflict with his sense of professionalism and authenticity. Hassan's emotional struggles and identity tensions led to critical reflection and ongoing negotiation of his professional identity. The findings underscore the need for professional development programs that support LTEs in navigating the pressures of self‐branding while maintaining their professionalism. Additionally, the study calls for further research into the long‐term effects of social media on professional identity and well‐being across diverse cultural and institutional contexts.

Ozempic (Glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist) in social media posts: Unveiling user perspectives through Reddit topic modeling

Semaglutide, a Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist marketed under the brand name Ozempic, is originally prescribed for diabetes treatment and obesity management. However, healthy individuals without a medical cause use Ozempic without medical supervision to improve their physical appearance - a trend that has proliferated through social media, news coverage, and relevant celebrity endorsements. Thus, exploring social media posts can provide insight into understanding individuals’ experiences, beliefs, motivation, as well as misconceptions about Ozempic. To do so, this study utilizes BERTopic, a natural language processing approach for topic modeling, to analyze 46,491 Reddit posts from three subreddits (r/ozempic, r/ozempicforweightloss, r/semaglutide) dated between April 2019 and December 2023. The analysis revealed various discussion topics, including using Ozempic for weight loss, dosaging, insurance denial due to lack of a diabetes diagnosis, weight loss tracking, and side effect management. Overall, the overarching theme centered on the off-label use of Ozempic and its GLP-1 agonist counterparts for weight loss purposes. Moreover, awareness on the health hazards associated with the off-label and unsupervised use of Ozempic as an image enhancer do not frequently appear in the social media discussions. These findings, supported by a dynamic topic modeling analysis, offer ecological insights into the experiences and opinions of community members in Ozempic-related subreddits, reinforcing the growing evidence of the drug's increasing popularity for weight management as well as the role played by social media. The study also shows how information campaigns about the health risks associated with the off-label use of Ozempic by healthy individuals without a medical cause may help counterbalance the lack of risk awareness detected in social media discussions.

Analysis of Social Media Discourse on the Gimje Horizon Festival

Analysis of Social Media Discourse on the Gimje Horizon Festival

A scoping review about the portrayal of depression and anxiety in mainstream and social media.

Media portrayal of mental disorders has a significant impact on awareness and stigma. Given the high prevalence of depression and anxiety as mental disorders, it is crucial to understand how they are represented. This scoping review aimed to map the existing literature on the portrayal of depression and anxiety in mainstream and social media. A comprehensive search was conducted in PubMed and PsychInfo, resulting in the inclusion of 20 records that predominantly examined social media and newspapers. Findings indicate that social media discussions on depression were mostly supportive and non-stigmatising. Public figures and role models played a significant role in encouraging open communication. Research on newspapers and other media forms yielded mixed results yet leaning towards positive portrayals. Limited studies explored anxiety portrayal. While acknowledging potential limitations in generalisability, this review emphasises the importance of accurately depicting mental health in media, particularly on social media platforms, while highlighting the need for broader investigations into anxiety representation.

Racializing COVID-19: Race-Related and Racist Language on Facebook, Pandemic Othering, and Concern About COVID-19

ABSTRACT To what extent have social media discussions of health racialized during the COVID-19 pandemic? How has the spread of racialized social media health content influenced attitudes about race and COVID-19? To answer these questions, we collected data on public US Facebook posts from 2019–2020 related to health and health care (n ≃ 9,659,000) and document a rise in race-related and racist language in online discussions directly-related to health during the pandemic. We show a substantive increase in Facebook posts connecting health to race and racism beginning around the announcement of the first declared case of COVID-19 in March 2020. Text analyses reveal that posts with explicitly racist language surrounding blame for COVID-19, discussions of unemployment rates and benefits, as well as immigration were shared more on average than the typical post about health generally. We connect the spread of this language on Facebook to survey responses (n ≃ 231,000) from Nationscape. We show that weekly increases in racist and race-related health language on Facebook are related to declines in concern for COVID-19 and heightened anti-Asian attitudes, especially for racially resentful white Facebook users.

Changing minds about climate change in Indonesia through a TV drama

Drama has been shown to change attitudes and inspire action on topics as diverse as health, sanitation, intergroup conflict, and gender equality, but rarely have randomized trials assessed the influence of narrative entertainment programs focusing on climate change and environmental protection. We report the results of an experiment in which young Indonesian adults were sampled from five metropolitan areas. Participants were randomly assigned to watch a condensed two-hour version of a new award-winning TV drama series #CeritaKita (Our Story)—and accompanying social media discussion program Ngobrolin #CeritaKita (Chatter—Our Story)—as opposed to a placebo drama/discussion that lacked climate and environmental content. Outcomes were assessed via survey 1–7 days after exposure to the shows, and through a follow up survey after 5 months. We find that the treatment group became significantly more knowledgeable about environmental issues such as deforestation, an effect that persists long term. Other outcomes, such as motivation to participate in public discussion on climate change, willingness to follow influencers who post about environmental issues on social media, support for policies to address climate change and support for more media coverage of this issue, moved initially after viewing but subsided over time, possibly due to lack of continued exposure and other changes in context. This pattern of results suggests that ongoing/seasonal programming may be needed in order to sustain attitudinal and behavioral change. Draw media market investments, and change public narratives at scale when it matters change.

Observers of social media discussions about racial discrimination condemn denial but also adopt it

Sharing experiences with racism (racial discrimination disclosure) has the power to raise awareness of discrimination and spur meaningful conversations about race. Sharing these experiences with racism on social media may prompt a range of responses among users. While previous work investigates how disclosure impacts disclosers and listeners, we extend this research to explore the impact of observing discussions about racial discrimination online—what we call vicarious race talk. In a series of experiments using real social media posts, we show that the initial response to racial discrimination disclosure—whether the response denies or validates the poster’s perspective—influences observers’ own perceptions and attitudes. Despite observers identifying denial as less supportive than validation, those who observed a denial response showed less responsive attitudes toward the poster/target (Studies 1–3) and less support for discussions about discrimination on social media in general (Studies 2–3). Exploratory findings revealed that those who viewed denial comments also judged the transgressor as less racist, and expressed less support and more denial in their own comments. This suggests that even as observers negatively judge denial, their perceptions of the poster are nonetheless negatively influenced, and this impact extends to devaluing the topic of discrimination broadly. We highlight the context of social media, where racial discrimination disclosure—and how people respond to it—may be particularly consequential.

The Influence of Social Media on Judicial Independence

Purpose: This study sought to analyze the influence of social media on judicial independence. Methodology: The study adopted a desktop research methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library. Findings: The findings reveal that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to the influence of social media on judicial independence. Preliminary empirical review revealed that social media exerted considerable pressure on judicial processes, potentially compromising judges' independence due to increased scrutiny and criticism. It found that misinformation and sensationalism on social media significantly eroded public trust in the judiciary, leading to distorted perceptions of judicial fairness. Judges were often influenced, consciously or subconsciously, by social media discourse, affecting their decision-making processes. The study highlighted the need for ongoing attention and research to understand and mitigate these influences, ensuring the preservation and strengthening of judicial independence in the digital age. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Social Silence Theory, Media Dependency Theory and Spiral of Silence Theory may be used to anchor future studies on judicial independence. The study recommended developing comprehensive guidelines for judges' social media engagement to maintain impartiality, and emphasized the need for further research into the psychological impact of social media on judges. It advocated for judicial education and training programs focused on digital literacy and stress management, and suggested establishing institutional support systems for judges facing social media pressures. Additionally, it recommended proactive engagement of judicial institutions with the public through social media to build trust and counteract misinformation. Continuous research and monitoring of social media's impact on the judiciary were also advised to adapt and implement effective strategies proactively.

Climate Imaginaries and the Linguistic Construction of Identities on Social Media

This article takes a linguistic approach to the construction of group identities in relation to climate imaginaries, which condition what climate futures are considered possible. It employs social identity theory along with methods from Sociolinguistics and Discourse Linguistics to analyse patterns of positioning and stance-taking in social media discourse (Twitter/X, Instagram). By identifying typical multimodal practices at a micro level, as well as introducing five functional meta categories (›awareness, advice, and agitation‹, ›ritualised appreciation‹, ›solidarity and allyship, ›voice and advocacy‹, and ›community demarcation‹), the research investigates how digital discourse reflects and shapes group identities related to climate change topics. It thereby offers insights into the role of language in co-producing climate imaginaries in digitally shared environments.

QuoteInspector: Gaining Insight about Social Media Discussions

Our greatest source of insight into the real world today is via social media. Here, a major statement or quote by a public figure (world leader, politician, celebrity, scientist) can have wide-ranging impact, igniting extensive discussions and triggering reactions. It would be helpful to have tools for monitoring, querying, and inspecting the "flow" of social discourse. We introduce QuoteInspector, a system uniquely designed for efficient tracking and analysis of social media discussions around quotes. QuoteInspector leverages modern text embeddings and employs a clustering-based methodology for extracting topics from posts; it further integrates various NLP techniques for in-depth cluster analysis. Additionally, the system enhances the user experience by combining keyword- and relationship-based (structured) search for efficient and precise quote retrieval.

‘Stupid Girls’ vs. ‘Real Men’: Identity Construction and Social Media Polarization over Revenge Porn

The purpose of this paper is to explore polarization in the discourse of social media commentators over crimes of Revenge Porn. Revenge porn refers to “the nonconsensual sharing of intimate images” (Bond and Tyrrell 2021, 2166), videos, or other intimate material, which are weaponized against its victims. As with other crimes, revenge porn cases are highly discussed on social media, where users might (a) reproduce prejudice and stigma against victims or, contrarily, (b) resist victim-blaming and shaming ideologies as a form of activism and call for empathy (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and Bou-Franch 2019; Palomino-Manjón 2022). In light of this, this paper examines the discursive construction of the phenomenon of revenge porn and the evaluations proposed of victims and perpetrators on the social network YouTube with the aim of unveiling conflicting ideologies online. To this end, the present study analyzes a corpus of 14,000 comments (ca. 411,000 words) from four different YouTube videos tackling revenge porn cases. The paper adopts a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) approach (Partington et al. 2013) and uses Sketch Engine to analyze the corpus. Additionally, a more detailed analysis of evaluative resources and linguistic patterns is carried out. Results show that polarized understandings of revenge porn abound in the corpus. Specifically, victim-blaming ideologies are discursively concealed, whereas traditional ideologies regarding sex are overtly encoded. Moreover, male users affiliate with newer constructions of masculinity and dissociate from the illegal actions attributed to perpetrators. Women/victims are generally derogated for not conforming to societal views of common-sensical sexual behavior or praised for their strength in standing social judgment.

Emotion labelling strengthens readers’ emotional responses to online messages

ABSTRACT Emotionally overheated social media discussions cause many harms both to the individuals participating in the discussion and to the wider society. To support emotion regulation in social media discussions, the strategy of affect labelling is explored. Two experiments were run to study the effects of emotion labels presented with social media messages on participants’ emotional responses to the messages. Altogether 84 participants read emotional social media messages presented without and with emotion labels (Experiment 1, N = 39), and without labels and with emotion / control labels (Experiment 2, N = 45) and rated their subjective emotional valence. Results show that the ratings of valence were significantly higher for the positive messages presented with label than for the messages presented as such without emotion label or presented with a control label. In addition, the results of the second experiment show that the negative social media messages were experienced as more negative when the messages were presented with an emotion label than without emotion label or with control label. The results suggest that affect labelling of social media messages is an ineffective strategy to down-regulate emotions but could be used to support and strengthen positive emotions.

An Assessment of Social Media Usage Patterns and Influences among Tribal Naga Women of North East India

Social media platforms have been acclaimed as providing immense potential for the empowerment of diverse societal groups regardless of gender, caste, class or race. But studies on women’s online experiences have authenticated the hindrances faced by women in access and engagement in social media discourses. This study aimed to assess the pattern of social media use, influences and hindrances faced by tribal Naga women of North East India in their engagement in social media public platforms. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey of 360 female respondents from the States of Nagaland and Manipur. The results showed that WhatsApp Messaging is the most popular platform (n=338) among Naga women, followed by YouTube (n=298) and Facebook (n=286). About seventy-four per cent (74.55%) of the respondents stated that they access social media several times daily. Using social media for news and information ranked the highest (95.93%) followed by social relationships (92.51%). It was observed that social media exposure and usage has positively increased Naga women’s gender awareness (97.16%) as well as their awareness of political and civic issues (96.15 %). However it has not significantly increased their public opinion expression (20%) on socio-political and civic issues. The main hindrances in engagement on social media discussions were Lack of Knowledge about issues (73.98%), followed by a Lack of Interest (71.13%) and a Lack of Time (62.14%). Based in the findings, despite the hindrances and low level of engagement in social media public discourses, it was concluded that Naga women’s information seeking behaviour being the main motivation behind social media could be a positive indicator for the development of their agency.

Second-level agenda-setting effects of news media and public policy on social media discourse across platforms: immigration during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.

ABSTRACT Integrating intermedia, second-level agenda-setting, and cross-platform research, this study examines the role of news media attention and public policy decisions in driving the salience of issue attributes on multiple social media platforms. We collected three immigration-related datasets (i.e., social media posts, news media headlines, and policy documents covering the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic that also marked the last year of the Trump presidency) and applied manual coding, automated text analysis, and time series modeling to analyze the relationships. The results show that news media set the public agenda across Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube at the second level, with conservative media elevating travel-related discussion and liberal media driving border- and court-rulings-related discussion on those platforms. Compared to news media, the second-level agenda-setting effect of policy announcements was small and platform-specific. Among the three platforms, public discourse on YouTube was the most responsive to media and policy agendas. These findings advance second-level agenda-setting research, demonstrate partisan differences in news media’s impact, reveal the limited role of public policy, and provide a nuanced portrayal of cross-platform public discourse dynamics.

Exploring Climate Change Communication in Afghanistan on the X Platform over the Last Six Months of 2024

Social media has emerged as an accessible communication tool for mass audiences worldwide. These new platforms are widely used in Afghanistan for various purposes. Given Afghanistan's high vulnerability to climate change impacts, the country requires effective public awareness and communication strategies across both traditional and new media. To inform policymaking for collective climate action, there is a need to analyze the content of social media discourse on climate change. The primary aim of this study is to explore climate change communication on the X platform to develop effective policies and strategies for leveraging social media, particularly the X platform, to communicate about climate change impacts in Afghanistan. The study employed a descriptive research design combined with a content analysis approach. The results indicate that the social media discourse revolved around key themes, including climate change impacts, Afghanistan's vulnerability to droughts, flash floods, monsoon rains, and unexpected snowfall, the lack of funding for climate change communication and mitigation efforts, and the disproportionate impact on women. The analysis also found that the total user engagement during the five-month study period reached 424,522 interactions, including reposts, replies, likes, and views. The findings of this study can inform the development of targeted, evidence-based communication strategies and policies to raise public awareness and catalyze collective action on climate change in Afghanistan, leveraging the reach and engagement potential of social media platforms.