TY - GEN
T1 - Public Responses and Concerns Regarding Vape Bans on Reddit
T2 - 13th International Conference on Social Computing and Social Media, SCSM 2021, held as part of the 23rd International Conference, HCI International 2021
AU - Xu, Yusi Aveva
AU - Kim, Hye Min
AU - Wang, Yunwen
AU - Wu, Jiaxi
AU - Hong, Traci
AU - McLaughlin, Margaret
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Public responses toward vaping (i.e. electronic cigarette use) and vape bans have been hotly debated on social media. This study investigated vape-ban-related posts (n = 6,547) published between August 15, 2019 and February 15, 2020 on Reddit, a news aggregation social networking site that tolerates discussions that may be self-censored on other platforms. We conducted time series analysis and structural topic modeling to track public responses to the vape ban over a six-month period. Results showed that Google searches for vaping-related information were significantly associated with vape-ban-related posting activity on Reddit; and that eight topics emerged from the data, which included (1) Donald Trump, (2) vaping products, (3) liberty and autonomy, (4) inaccurate media reporting, (5) loopholes in state vape bans, (6) tobacco industry influence and the stupidity of ban, (7) the contrast between vaping and other more dangerous issues (e.g. school shootings, suicides), and (8) encouraging vapers to “vape on” (continue to vape). Each topic was examined in terms of their modelled longitudinal prevalence. All eight topics shared a similar theme of advocating vaping, although Redditors provided nuanced responses across time as the vaping epidemic unfolded. Social media discourse is promising to provide real-time indications of public response for diseases and epidemic surveillance, and to shed light on broader societal issues beyond the specific public health context.
AB - Public responses toward vaping (i.e. electronic cigarette use) and vape bans have been hotly debated on social media. This study investigated vape-ban-related posts (n = 6,547) published between August 15, 2019 and February 15, 2020 on Reddit, a news aggregation social networking site that tolerates discussions that may be self-censored on other platforms. We conducted time series analysis and structural topic modeling to track public responses to the vape ban over a six-month period. Results showed that Google searches for vaping-related information were significantly associated with vape-ban-related posting activity on Reddit; and that eight topics emerged from the data, which included (1) Donald Trump, (2) vaping products, (3) liberty and autonomy, (4) inaccurate media reporting, (5) loopholes in state vape bans, (6) tobacco industry influence and the stupidity of ban, (7) the contrast between vaping and other more dangerous issues (e.g. school shootings, suicides), and (8) encouraging vapers to “vape on” (continue to vape). Each topic was examined in terms of their modelled longitudinal prevalence. All eight topics shared a similar theme of advocating vaping, although Redditors provided nuanced responses across time as the vaping epidemic unfolded. Social media discourse is promising to provide real-time indications of public response for diseases and epidemic surveillance, and to shed light on broader societal issues beyond the specific public health context.
KW - Agenda setting
KW - Reddit
KW - Topic modeling
KW - Vape ban
KW - Vaping
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85112239752
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85112239752#tab=citedBy
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-77626-8_26
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-77626-8_26
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85112239752
SN - 9783030776251
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 391
EP - 403
BT - Social Computing and Social Media
A2 - Meiselwitz, Gabriele
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Y2 - 24 July 2021 through 29 July 2021
ER -