An investigation of Social Support Exchange and Communication Patterns among Chinese on Online Discussion Forum

dc.contributor.authorWang, Xi
dc.contributor.authorTong, Xing
dc.contributor.authorZhu, Yushan
dc.contributor.authorTan, Tianyi
dc.contributor.authorZheng, Bowen
dc.date.accessioned2020-01-04T07:50:28Z
dc.date.available2020-01-04T07:50:28Z
dc.date.issued2020-01-07
dc.description.abstractOnline Health Communities (OHCs), frequently adopted as online discussion forums for online users to communicate on health issues, have been used worldwide. By analyzing a representative breast-cancer-related OHC from mainland China—Baidu Discussion Forum, this study attempts to investigate social support exchange and communication patterns through user-generated content by data mining approaches. According to the outcomes, emotional support seeking and providing presents itself to be a more critical theme among Chinese users than other types of social support. In addition, almost half of the users on Baidu Discussion Forum have simple patterns of involvement, and a fairly small proportion of highly active Chinese users are quite influential in shaping the connections of the social support network. Meanwhile, the off-topic discussions which are not directly on health concerns are not frequently touched by Chinese people. This may impact the longevity of both users and threads, and undermine the foundation of OHCs in the long term. The findings have practical implications for researchers and health practitioners targeting on the Chinese population.
dc.format.extent10 pages
dc.identifier.doi10.24251/HICSS.2020.405
dc.identifier.isbn978-0-9981331-3-3
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10125/64147
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofProceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectData-Driven Smart Health in Asia Pacific
dc.subjectonline discussion forum
dc.subjectonline health communities
dc.subjectsocial network
dc.subjectsocial support
dc.titleAn investigation of Social Support Exchange and Communication Patterns among Chinese on Online Discussion Forum
dc.typeConference Paper
dc.type.dcmiText

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
0327.pdf
Size:
570.09 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format