What the Public say about E-cigarettes on Chinese Social Media: Combining Text-mining Analysis and Correspondence Analysis (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne Chen Lyu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Electronic Cigarettes ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Professionals ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
Access Information ◽  
Chinese Public

BACKGROUND Electronic cigarettes have become increasingly popular. China has accelerated its legislation on e-cigarettes in recent years by issuing two policies to regulate their use; firstly, on August 26, 2018 and secondly, on November 1, 2019. Social media provides an efficient platform to access information on the public opinion of e-cigarettes. OBJECTIVE In order to get an insight into how policies have influenced the reaction of the Chinese public to e-cigarettes, this study seeks to understand what the Chinese public say about e-cigarettes, and how the focus of discussion might have changed in the context of policy implementation. METHODS This study used a combination of text mining and correspondence analysis. From January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2019, Python was used to text mine the most frequently used words/phrases in public e-cigarette discussion on Zhihu, China’s largest question-and-answer platform and one of the country’s most trustworthy social media sources. Correspondence analysis was used to examine the similarities and differences between high-frequency words across three time periods (i.e., 2017/1/1-2018/8/27, 2018/8/28-2019/10/31, 2019/11/1-2020/1/1). RESULTS Results showed that the consistent themes across time were comparisons with traditional cigarettes; health concerns; and how to choose e-cigarette products. The issuance of government policies on e-cigarettes led to a change in the focus of public discussion. The discussion of e-cigarettes in period 1 mainly focused on the use and experience of e-cigarettes. In period 2, the public’s attention was not only on the substances related to e-cigarettes, but also on the smoking cessation functions of e-cigarettes. In period 3, the public shifted their attention to the e-cigarette industry and government policy on the banning of sales of e-cigarettes to minors. CONCLUSIONS Social media is an informative source which can help policymakers and public health professionals understand the public's concerns over and understanding of e-cigarettes. When there was little regulation, public discussion was greatly influenced by industry claims about e-cigarettes; however, once e-cigarette policies were issued, these policies, to a large extent, set the agenda for public discussion. In addition, media reporting of these policies might have greatly influenced the way e-cigarette policies were discussed. Therefore, monitoring e-cigarette discussion on social media and responding to it in a timely manner will both help improve the public's e-cigarette literacy and facilitate the implementation of e-cigarette related policies. CLINICALTRIAL Not Applicable.

scholarly journals Public Opinion About E-Cigarettes on Chinese Social Media: A Combined Study of Text Mining Analysis and Correspondence Analysis

10.2196/19804 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. e19804
Author(s):  
Di Wang ◽  
Joanne Chen Lyu ◽  
Xiaoyu Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Electronic Cigarettes ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Professionals ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
Chinese Public

Background Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have become increasingly popular. China has accelerated its legislation on e-cigarettes in recent years by issuing two policies to regulate their use: the first on August 26, 2018, and the second on November 1, 2019. Social media provide an efficient platform to access information on the public opinion of e-cigarettes. Objective To gain insight into how policies have influenced the reaction of the Chinese public to e-cigarettes, this study aims to understand what the Chinese public say about e-cigarettes and how the focus of discussion might have changed in the context of policy implementation. Methods This study uses a combination of text mining and correspondence analysis to content analyze 1160 e-cigarette–related questions and their corresponding answers from Zhihu, China’s largest question-and-answer platform and one of the country’s most trustworthy social media sources. From January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2019, Python was used to text mine the most frequently used words and phrases in public e-cigarette discussions on Zhihu. The correspondence analysis was used to examine the similarities and differences between high-frequency words and phrases across 3 periods (ie, January 1, 2017, to August 27, 2018; August 28, 2018, to October 31, 2019; and November 1, 2019, to January 1, 2020). Results The results of the study showed that the consistent themes across time were comparisons with traditional cigarettes, health concerns, and how to choose e-cigarette products. The issuance of government policies on e-cigarettes led to a change in the focus of public discussion. The discussion of e-cigarettes in period 1 mainly focused on the use and experience of e-cigarettes. In period 2, the public’s attention was not only on the substances related to e-cigarettes but also on the smoking cessation functions of e-cigarettes. In period 3, the public shifted their attention to the e-cigarette industry and government policy on the banning of e-cigarette sales to minors. Conclusions Social media are an informative source, which can help policy makers and public health professionals understand the public’s concerns over and understanding of e-cigarettes. When there was little regulation, public discussion was greatly influenced by industry claims about e-cigarettes; however, once e-cigarette policies were issued, these policies, to a large extent, set the agenda for public discussion. In addition, media reporting of these policies might have greatly influenced the way e-cigarette policies were discussed. Therefore, monitoring e-cigarette discussions on social media and responding to them in a timely manner will both help improve the public’s e-cigarette literacy and facilitate the implementation of e-cigarette–related policies.

scholarly journals Public Opinion About E-Cigarettes on Chinese Social Media: A Combined Study of Text Mining Analysis and Correspondence Analysis (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Di Wang ◽  
Joanne Chen Lyu ◽  
Xiaoyu Zhao
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Text Mining ◽  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Electronic Cigarettes ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Health Professionals ◽  
Period 2 ◽  
Chinese Public

BACKGROUND Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have become increasingly popular. China has accelerated its legislation on e-cigarettes in recent years by issuing two policies to regulate their use: the first on August 26, 2018, and the second on November 1, 2019. Social media provide an efficient platform to access information on the public opinion of e-cigarettes. OBJECTIVE To gain insight into how policies have influenced the reaction of the Chinese public to e-cigarettes, this study aims to understand what the Chinese public say about e-cigarettes and how the focus of discussion might have changed in the context of policy implementation. METHODS This study uses a combination of text mining and correspondence analysis to content analyze 1160 e-cigarette–related questions and their corresponding answers from Zhihu, China’s largest question-and-answer platform and one of the country’s most trustworthy social media sources. From January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2019, Python was used to text mine the most frequently used words and phrases in public e-cigarette discussions on Zhihu. The correspondence analysis was used to examine the similarities and differences between high-frequency words and phrases across 3 periods (ie, January 1, 2017, to August 27, 2018; August 28, 2018, to October 31, 2019; and November 1, 2019, to January 1, 2020). RESULTS The results of the study showed that the consistent themes across time were comparisons with traditional cigarettes, health concerns, and how to choose e-cigarette products. The issuance of government policies on e-cigarettes led to a change in the focus of public discussion. The discussion of e-cigarettes in period 1 mainly focused on the use and experience of e-cigarettes. In period 2, the public’s attention was not only on the substances related to e-cigarettes but also on the smoking cessation functions of e-cigarettes. In period 3, the public shifted their attention to the e-cigarette industry and government policy on the banning of e-cigarette sales to minors. CONCLUSIONS Social media are an informative source, which can help policy makers and public health professionals understand the public’s concerns over and understanding of e-cigarettes. When there was little regulation, public discussion was greatly influenced by industry claims about e-cigarettes; however, once e-cigarette policies were issued, these policies, to a large extent, set the agenda for public discussion. In addition, media reporting of these policies might have greatly influenced the way e-cigarette policies were discussed. Therefore, monitoring e-cigarette discussions on social media and responding to them in a timely manner will both help improve the public’s e-cigarette literacy and facilitate the implementation of e-cigarette–related policies.

Chinese Citizenry Social Media Pressures and Public Official Responses

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-181
Author(s):  
James Robert Masterson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Public Official ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
Access Information ◽  
The Government ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
High Level

Widespread use of social media in China is a double edged sword: social media offers opportunities for the government to connect with society, gauge the opinion of citizens in the public domain, and allow citizens to voice their anger when necessary by blowing off steam online rather than in the streets. However, social media also allows citizens to access information outside of China much more rapidly and efficiently and to link up and communicate with other citizens much more quickly. Social media allows users to share texts, photos, and files, making it much more difficult for the government to control information and to thwart organizing for political purposes. In some instances, the use of social media has forced the Chinese government to take actions that it otherwise would not have done or to reverse actions or policies already set in place. The goal of this chapter is to illustrate the double-edged sword that social media poses to government officials in China, particularly high-level party officials in Beijing.

scholarly journals Social Media Affordances and Information Sharing: An Evidence from Chinese Public Organizations

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 135-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhan Khan ◽  
Xiangyun Si ◽  
Kashif Ullah Khan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Public Organizations ◽  
Middle Level ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
The Public ◽  
Chinese Public

Abstract The study aims to reveal the role of social media and its influence on information sharing within public organizations and emphasis on the distribution affordance to facilitate information processes. Existing literature emphasized different aspects of social media in the public sector to promote the relationship between government and citizens or provide better public service, for example, innovation, policies, openness, and communication. However, there is a wide gap in the literature to investigate social media use and information sharing within public organizations. The current study tries to accomplish the goal by conducting semi-structured interviews with 15 employees in public organizations in Chaohu city, China and applying content analysis on the interviews. Despite the existing literature, the targeted group for this study is divided into three levels (i) senior-level, (ii) middle-level, and (iii) junior-level employees to get a better view of social media. The study is based on grounded theory for coding analysis. We provide an overview of social media use within Chinese public organizations and discuss five social media affordances involved in the public organizations. Finally, we provide the implications, limitations, recommendation, and future research of this research area.

scholarly journals The WHO Health Alert: Communicating a Global Pandemic with WhatsApp

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-40
Author(s):  
Josephine Walwema
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
World Health ◽  
Global Risk ◽  
The Public ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Access Information ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Local Agencies

Upon declaring COVID-19 a global pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) orchestrated a global risk-communication outreach. The WHO’s objective was to persuade the public to upend and alter their lives so as to contain the disease and minimize its spread and infection. The WHO found a simple and efficient medium to communicate glocally through the social media application WhatsApp, through which individuals could access information without gatekeeping by governments and local agencies.

scholarly journals The Battle of Truths: The Production of Meaning in Indonesian Political Memes

K ta Kita ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-35
Author(s):  
Agustinus Dias Suparto
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Political Tension ◽  
Valid Data ◽  
Meaning Production ◽  
Political Factions

Memes have been used in the public discussion nowadays by the internet users and the emergence of social media especially Instagram has facilitates people to share their opinions. Thus, people are trying to influence each other using memes about the political tension which involves Basuki Tjahaja Purnama about his blasphemy case on Islamic verse in Al Quran and Habib Rizieq’s case. Therefore, in order to influence other using memes, several iconic figures are used to produce the meaning about the truths that are said by those figures in each faction. The using of news as the valid data to represent the reality is also used to be the truth that should be believed by the readers of the memes. Later, this paper will try to analyze using discursive approach on how memes use several features to convince the readers to believe that the meaning in the memes is the truth. Finally the memes from two political factions which are pro and cons about the cases are used to reveal the meaning production in memes.  

scholarly journals The Importance of Genuineness in Public Engagement—An Exploratory Study of Pediatric Communication on Social Media in China

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (19) ◽  
pp. 7078
Author(s):  
Wenze Lu ◽  
Cindy Sing Bik Ngai ◽  
Lu Yang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Health Communication ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Exploratory Study ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Chinese Public

There is a growing need for the public to interact with pediatricians through social media in China, and genuineness is a crucial factor contributing to effective communication, but few studies have examined the relationship between genuineness and its effect on public engagement. This study developed a four-dimension framework including self-disclosure, genuine response, functional interactivity, and genuineness in Chinese culture to investigate the effect of genuineness in the communication of Chinese social media influencers in pediatrics on public engagement. Content analysis was employed to examine these dimensions and the related public engagement in 300 social media posts on the largest microblogging site in China. The findings indicate that genuine response was positively associated with the number of comments and positive comments, while negatively related to the number of shares. Functional interactivity made the site more appealing, resulting in likes and shares. Genuineness in Chinese culture was reflected in engagement through sharing posts by the public. This study is the first to develop an integrated framework to measure genuineness in online health communication and contributes to the understanding of the effect of genuineness on Chinese public engagement in social media.

Using Social Media to Analyze Public Concerns and Policy Responses to COVID-19 in Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Guanqing Liang ◽  
Jingxin Zhao ◽  
Helena Yan Ping Lau ◽  
Cane Wing-Ki Leung
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Media Analysis ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Evaluation Phase ◽  
Key Issues

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused huge economic and societal disruptions. To fight against the coronavirus, it is critical for policymakers to take swift and effective actions. In this article, we take Hong Kong as a case study, aiming to leverage social media data to support policymakers’ policy-making activities in different phases. First, in the agenda setting phase, we facilitate policymakers to identify key issues to be addressed during COVID-19. In particular, we design a novel epidemic awareness index to continuously monitor public discussion hotness of COVID-19 based on large-scale data collected from social media platforms. Then we identify the key issues by analyzing the posts and comments of the extensively discussed topics. Second, in the policy evaluation phase, we enable policymakers to conduct real-time evaluation of anti-epidemic policies. Specifically, we develop an accurate Cantonese sentiment classification model to measure the public satisfaction with anti-epidemic policies and propose a keyphrase extraction technique to further extract public opinions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work which conducts a large-scale social media analysis of COVID-19 in Hong Kong. The analytical results reveal some interesting findings: (1) there is a very low correlation between the number of confirmed cases and the public discussion hotness of COVID-19. The major public concern in the early stage is the shortage of anti-epidemic items. (2) The top-3 anti-epidemic measures with the greatest public satisfaction are daily press conference on COVID-19 updates, border closure, and social distancing rules.

scholarly journals The Messages Presented in Electronic Cigarette–Related Social Media Promotions and Discussion: Scoping Review (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kahlia McCausland ◽  
Bruce Maycock ◽  
Tama Leaver ◽  
Jonine Jancey
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Smoking Cessation ◽  
Electronic Cigarettes ◽  
Data Extraction ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scoping Reviews ◽  
Transnational Tobacco Companies

BACKGROUND There has been a rapid rise in the popularity of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) over the last decade, with growth predicted to continue. The uptake of these devices has escalated despite inconclusive evidence of their efficacy as a smoking cessation device and unknown long-term health consequences. As smoking rates continue to drop or plateau in many well-developed countries, transnational tobacco companies have transitioned into the vaping industry and are now using social media to promote their products. Evidence indicates e-cigarettes are being marketed on social media as a harm reduction alternative, with retailers and manufacturers utilizing marketing techniques historically used by the tobacco industry. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to identify and describe the messages presented in e-cigarette–related social media (Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest) promotions and discussions and identify future directions for research, surveillance, and regulation. METHODS Data sources included MEDLINE, Scopus, ProQuest, Informit, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, and Google Scholar. Included studies were published in English between 2007 and 2017, analyzed content captured from e-cigarette–related social media promotions or discussions, and reported results for e-cigarettes separately from other forms of tobacco and nicotine delivery. Database search ceased in October 2017. Initial searches identified 536 studies. Two reviewers screened studies by title and abstract. One reviewer examined 71 full-text articles to determine eligibility and identified 25 studies for inclusion. This process was undertaken with the assistance of the Web-based screening and data extraction tool—Covidence. The review was registered with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Systematic Reviews database and followed the methodology for JBI Scoping Reviews. RESULTS Several key messages are being used to promote e-cigarettes including as a safer alternative to cigarettes, efficacy as a smoking cessation aid, and for use where smoking is prohibited. Other major marketing efforts aimed at capturing a larger market involve promotion of innovative flavoring and highlighting the public performance of vaping. Discussion and promotion of these devices appear to be predominantly occurring among the general public and those with vested interests such as retailers and manufacturers. There is a noticeable silence from the public health and government sector in these discussions on social media. CONCLUSIONS The social media landscape is dominated by pro-vaping messages disseminated by the vaping industry and vaping proponents. The uncertainty surrounding e-cigarette regulation expressed within the public health field appears not to be reflected in ongoing social media dialogues and highlights the need for public health professionals to interact with the public to actively influence social media conversations and create a more balanced discussion. With the vaping industry changing so rapidly, real-time monitoring and surveillance of how these devices are discussed, promoted, and used on social media is necessary in conjunction with evidence published in academic journals.

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