A Multidimensional Approach for Evaluating Reality in Social Media: Mixed Methods Study.

Background: Misinformation is a threat to public health. The effective countering of misinformation may require moving beyond the binary classification of fake versus fact to capture the range of schemas that users employ to evaluate social media content. A more comprehensive understanding of user evaluation schemas is necessary.

Social media literacy: A conceptual framework.

Concerns over the harmful effects of social media have directed public attention to media literacy as a potential remedy. Current conceptions of media literacy are frequently based on mass media, focusing on the analysis of common content and evaluation of the content using common values. This article initiates a new conceptual framework of social media literacy (SoMeLit).

Normalizing Anxiety on Social Media Increases Self-Diagnosis of Anxiety: The Mediating Effect of Identification (But Not Stigma).

Normalizing mental health disorders in media communication can have a positive impact on the public by improving awareness. However, normalizing issues like anxiety could lead people to categorize normal anxiety as a disorder. In Study One, viewing social media posts that normalized anxiety resulted in a greater likelihood of self-diagnosis of anxiety disorder compared to social media posts that did not normalize it.

Social processes of participatory engagement effects: A longitudinal examination with a sample of young women in the United States.

Participatory interventions enable active user engagement, but research is needed to examine the longitudinal mechanisms through which engagement may generate outcomes. This study investigated the social processes following a web-based participatory media literacy intervention. In this program, young women were asked to create a digital counter message against the media content that promotes risk behavior.

Examining and Extending the Influence of Presumed Influence Hypothesis in Social Media.

The influence of presumed influence hypothesis (IPI) is a communication theory accounting for the process of persuasive media effects. The present study integrates theoretical perspectives in persuasion and new and traditional media effects research to investigate the assumptions and explanatory mechanisms of IPI in an experiment. View numbers in social media directly predicted presumed exposure by others and indirectly predicted presumed influence on others, consistent with IPI and inconsistent with the bandwagon heuristic.

Culture in Cancer Survivorship Interventions for Asian Americans: A Systematic Review and Critical Analyses.

Frequently hard to reach and underserved, Asian Americans are the racial group whose chief cause of mortality is cancer. Efficacious survivorship care is important, but little is known about extant intervention efforts for this community and how culture has been integrated into these efforts. This study examined cancer survivorship interventions for Asian Americans and how culture has been addressed, using an integrated framework consisting of goals, theory, methods, and cultural concordance in the persons of the interventions.

Testing three explanations for stigmatization of people of Asian descent during COVID-19: maladaptive coping, biased media use, or racial prejudice?

Objective: To investigate factors associated with the stigmatization of people of Asian descent during COVID-19 in the United States and factors that can mitigate or prevent stigmatization.

Design: A national sample survey of adults ( = 842) was conducted online between May 11 and May 19, 2020. Outcome variables were two dimensions of stigmatization, responsibility and persons as risk.

Efficacy and Mediators of a Web-Based Media Literacy Intervention for Indoor Tanning Prevention.

Extant media literacy interventions have been delivered in person, limiting their potential for large scale reach, implementation, and dissemination. Although emerging evidence suggests the interventions can impact behavior, the theoretical mediators that can explain the efficacy remain unknown. This study investigated the efficacy and mediators of a web-based media literacy intervention for reducing indoor tanning behavior among young women.

Mechanisms of Social Media Effects on Attitudes Toward E-Cigarette Use: Motivations, Mediators, and Moderators in a National Survey of Adolescents.

Background: Exposure to risk behavior on social media is associated with risk behavior tendencies among adolescents, but research on the mechanisms underlying the effects of social media exposure is sparse.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the motivations of social media use and the mediating and moderating mechanisms of their effects on attitude toward electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use among adolescents.

Methods: Using data from a national sample survey of adolescents (age=14-17 years, N=594), we developed and validated a social media use motivation scale.

Cultural Appropriateness in Health Communication: A Review and A Revised Framework.

A revised framework for cultural appropriateness is offered on the basis of a systematic review of operationalizations in 44 cancer screening interventions for Asian Americans. Studies commonly conveyed the epidemiological bases of the intervention (97.7%) and used the language of the population (95.

Visual Cancer Communication on Social Media: An Examination of Content and Effects of #Melanomasucks.

Background: Instagram is increasingly becoming a platform on which visual communication of cancer takes place, but few studies have investigated the content and effects. In particular, a paucity of research has evaluated the effects of visual communication of cancer on participative engagement outcomes.

Objective: The objective of our study was to investigate cancer-related beliefs and emotions shared on Instagram and to examine their effects on participative engagement outcomes including likes, comments, and social support.

Efficacy of a Media Literacy Intervention for Indoor Tanning Prevention.

Indoor tanning leads to melanoma, the fifth most common cancer in the USA. The highest rate of indoor tanning is among young women whose exposure to tanned images in the media is linked to protanning attitudes. This study evaluated the efficacy of a media literacy intervention for reducing young women's indoor tanning.

What makes a message real? The effects of perceived realism of alcohol- and drug-related messages on personal probability estimation.

Perceived lack of realism in alcohol advertising messages promising positive outcomes and antialcohol and antidrug messages portraying negative outcomes of alcohol consumption has been a cause for public health concern. This study examined the effects of perceived realism dimensions on personal probability estimation through identification and message minimization. Data collected from college students in U.

Media Literacy Interventions: A Meta-Analytic Review.

Although numerous media literacy interventions have been developed and delivered over the past 3 decades, a comprehensive meta-analytic assessment of their effects has not been available. This study investigates the average effect size and moderators of 51 media literacy interventions. Media literacy interventions had positive effects (d=.

Effects of gain- and loss-framed messages on the sun safety behavior of adolescents: the moderating role of risk perceptions.

This study examined how message framing effects can be moderated by two types of risk: (a) perceived effectiveness in preventing a risk and (b) perceived susceptibility to the risk. The results indicate that the perceived effectiveness moderated framing effects on the intention to use sunscreen such that a loss-framed message was more effective when perceived effectiveness was low, whereas a gain-framed message was more effective when perceived effectiveness was high. In addition, perceived susceptibility to skin cancer moderated framing effects on the intention to use sunscreen and the intention to wear long pants such that a loss-framed message was more effective when perceived susceptibility was high.

Genre-specific media and perceptions of personal and social risk of smoking among South Korean college students.

The smoking rate among adult men in South Korea is one of the highest in the world, standing at about 53%. Although various mass media-based educational initiatives have been taken to reduce this rate, their contribution toward the smoking risk perceptions of South Koreans has not been investigated. This study examined the association between genre-specific media exposure and personal and social risk perceptions of smokers and nonsmokers.

Gain- and Loss-Frame Sun Safety Messages and Psychological Reactance of Adolescents.

Adolescents are frequently thought of as having strong desire for independence and defiance of authority. Using psychological reactance theory, this study investigated the effects of gain and loss frame messages advocating sun safety behavior on the perceived threats to freedom of high school-aged adolescents. A loss rather than a gain frame message produced greater perceived threats to freedom among adolescents.

Magazine exposure, tanned women stereotypes, and tanning attitudes.

This study investigated whether magazine exposure is related to stereotypical beliefs about tanned women. A survey of White college women (n=205) assessed their exposure to beauty/fashion and health/fitness magazines. Outcome variables were the beliefs that tanned women are fashionable, fit, and shallow.

Predictors and the role of attitude toward the message and perceived message quality in gain- and loss-frame antidrug persuasion of adolescents.

This study examines predictors and the role of attitude toward the message and perceived message quality in the gain- and loss-framed antidrug persuasion of adolescents. Identification predicted the perceived effectiveness of gain- but not loss-frame ads, whereas perceived realism contributed to the perceived effectiveness of both frame ads. Positive affect predicted the attitude toward the gain-frame ads, whereas negative affect predicted the perceived quality of the loss-frame ads.

Fraternity drinking as edgework: an analysis of perspectives on risk and control.

Using theories on group identity and voluntary risk taking, data gathered through seven focus groups involving 43 fraternity members were analyzed to understand the ways in which the members construct the problems of and solutions to excessive drinking. Control emerged as a metaconcept that is both an undercurrent and interconnection to the expressed opinions. The possession and practice of control discriminated three levels of in-group versus out-group membership.

Tanning, skin cancer risk, and prevention: a content analysis of eight popular magazines that target female readers, 1997-2006.

The majority of tanning bed users in the U.S. are women.

Predictors of summer sun safety practice intentions among rural high school students.

Objective: To investigate the association between theoretically grounded psychosocial motivators and the sun safety practice intentions of rural youth.

Methods: A survey was given to 219 members of FFA (Future Farmers of America) at high schools in the rural Midwest (average age = 16).

Results: Perceived self-efficacy, peer norms, response efficacy, and susceptibility predicted protective clothing and sunscreen use intentions.

Personal, social, and cultural correlates of self-efficacy beliefs among South Korean college smokers.

Much research has documented the significant influence of self-efficacy on smoking cessation, but considerably less is known as to what health communicators can do to promote or address barriers to self-efficacy. This study investigated personal, social, and cultural correlates of smoking self-efficacy. A survey of college smokers was done in South Korea, where the current smoking rate among males is over 56%.

Fear appeals for individuals in different stages of change: intended and unintended effects and implications on public health campaigns.

This study represents an initial attempt to examine the intended and unintended effects of fear appeals among individuals in different stages of change. Toward this end, a pilot study investigated the effects of fear appeals promoting skin cancer preventive behavior among college students. After being exposed to fear appeals, individuals who were in the precontemplation stage indicated a greater likelihood of thinking defensively and fatalistically regarding the facts on health risk than those who had intended to engage in or who had previously engaged in preventive behavior.

Readiness to change, norms, and self-efficacy among heavy-drinking college students.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between the readiness to change of college heavy drinkers and their normative and self-efficacy beliefs.

Method: A multiple regression method analyzed the association in a heavy-drinker subsample (n=306; men = 53.3%) drawn from a survey of a convenience sample of college students in two large-size midwestern universities.