Toward a Taxonomy of Social Media Influencers in Public Health Communication

Date

2024-01-03

Contributor

Advisor

Department

Instructor

Depositor

Speaker

Researcher

Consultant

Interviewer

Narrator

Transcriber

Annotator

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Volume

Number/Issue

Starting Page

2778

Ending Page

Alternative Title

Abstract

In recent years, researchers have been discussing various strategies for public health communication to support individuals, populations, and communities in making healthier choices. In this context, the employment of social media influencers (SMI) is considered especially effective. Although we have seen extensive practical application during the COVID-19 pandemic, we possess little theoretical knowledge about the characteristics and narratives conveyed by SMI that engage in public health communication. This study takes a first step toward solving this issue by developing a taxonomy of SMI in public health communication. For the taxonomy development, qualitative content analyses of Twitter and YouTube data from the case of the German COVID-19 vaccination were conducted. The taxonomy emphasizes that SMI in public health communication can show major variations across different characteristics, thereby representing many facets of society. Moreover, conveyed narratives are not limited to health but also extend to political and social issues. This study contributes to the literature on broader SMI frameworks with a taxonomy of SMI in public health communication. The taxonomy offers a basis for further theory development and practical evaluations for context-specific employment of SMI.

Description

Keywords

Social Media Influencers and Influencing, covid-19, public health communication, social media influencers, taxonomy

Citation

Extent

10 pages

Format

Geographic Location

Time Period

Related To

Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

Related To (URI)

Table of Contents

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Rights Holder

Local Contexts

Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.