A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Communicating diabetes and diets on Twitter – a semantic content analysis
Authors: Kristina Eriksson-Backa, Kim Holmberg, Stefan Ek
Publisher: INDERSCIENCE PUBLISHERS
Publication year: 2016
Journal: International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations
Volume: 16
Issue: 1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1504/IJNVO.2016.075133
Abstract
This paper analyses: 1) the semantic content of tweets discussing
diabetes and diets: 2) the conversational connections of those tweeting and
those being mentioned in the tweets. The content analysis of the tweets aims at
mapping what kinds of diets are mentioned in conversations about diabetes and
in what context. Our data consists of 9,042 tweets containing the words
‘diabetes’ and ‘diet’. The findings indicate that analysing Twitter conversations
can be a fruitful and an efficient way to map public opinions about diabetes and
diets, as well as other medical issues that concern many people. The results also
showed that many private persons act as diabetes advocates spreading
information and news about diabetes and diets. Surveying these topics can be
useful for healthcare practitioners; as these are in contact with patients with
diabetes, it is important that they are aware of both the most discussed topics
and the most common information sources, who are often laymen.
This paper analyses: 1) the semantic content of tweets discussing
diabetes and diets: 2) the conversational connections of those tweeting and
those being mentioned in the tweets. The content analysis of the tweets aims at
mapping what kinds of diets are mentioned in conversations about diabetes and
in what context. Our data consists of 9,042 tweets containing the words
‘diabetes’ and ‘diet’. The findings indicate that analysing Twitter conversations
can be a fruitful and an efficient way to map public opinions about diabetes and
diets, as well as other medical issues that concern many people. The results also
showed that many private persons act as diabetes advocates spreading
information and news about diabetes and diets. Surveying these topics can be
useful for healthcare practitioners; as these are in contact with patients with
diabetes, it is important that they are aware of both the most discussed topics
and the most common information sources, who are often laymen.
Downloadable publication This is an electronic reprint of the original article. |  |
UTU Research Portal