Being vulnerable with viewers: Exploring how medical YouTubers communicated about COVID-19 with the public.

This study explores COVID-19 communication between medical experts who upload YouTube videos related to health/medicine (hereinafter medical YouTubers) and their viewers. We investigated three specific elements: (1) how medical YouTubers' use of words related to analytical thinking is associate...

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Main Authors: Seung Woo Chae, Noriko Hara, Harshit Rakesh Shiroiya, Janice Chen, Ellen Ogihara
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2024-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313857
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author Seung Woo Chae
Noriko Hara
Harshit Rakesh Shiroiya
Janice Chen
Ellen Ogihara
author_facet Seung Woo Chae
Noriko Hara
Harshit Rakesh Shiroiya
Janice Chen
Ellen Ogihara
author_sort Seung Woo Chae
collection DOAJ
description This study explores COVID-19 communication between medical experts who upload YouTube videos related to health/medicine (hereinafter medical YouTubers) and their viewers. We investigated three specific elements: (1) how medical YouTubers' use of words related to analytical thinking is associated with their viewers' engagement, (2) how medical YouTubers' use of different types of emotion is associated with their viewers' engagement, and (3) the emotional alignment between medical YouTubers and their viewers. We collected 194 COVID-related video transcripts from five YouTube channels and 375,284 comments from those videos. We employed natural language processing to analyze the linguistic and emotional dimensions of these two text sets including analytical thinking, positive emotion, and negative emotion, the last of which was divided into anxiety, anger, and sadness. Additionally, three metrics provided by YouTube-the number of views, likes, and comments-were used as proxies representing user engagement. Our regression analysis results displayed that the medical YouTubers' analytical thinking was positively associated with the number of views. Regarding emotion, anxiety was positively correlated with the number of likes and comments, while both positive emotion and anger were negatively associated with the number of views. Finally, both positive and negative emotions of medical YouTubers were found to be positively correlated with the corresponding emotions of their viewers. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed within the context of COVID-19.
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spelling doaj-art-5b6806c05759437bbf87f766975b48002025-01-08T05:32:46ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032024-01-011912e031385710.1371/journal.pone.0313857Being vulnerable with viewers: Exploring how medical YouTubers communicated about COVID-19 with the public.Seung Woo ChaeNoriko HaraHarshit Rakesh ShiroiyaJanice ChenEllen OgiharaThis study explores COVID-19 communication between medical experts who upload YouTube videos related to health/medicine (hereinafter medical YouTubers) and their viewers. We investigated three specific elements: (1) how medical YouTubers' use of words related to analytical thinking is associated with their viewers' engagement, (2) how medical YouTubers' use of different types of emotion is associated with their viewers' engagement, and (3) the emotional alignment between medical YouTubers and their viewers. We collected 194 COVID-related video transcripts from five YouTube channels and 375,284 comments from those videos. We employed natural language processing to analyze the linguistic and emotional dimensions of these two text sets including analytical thinking, positive emotion, and negative emotion, the last of which was divided into anxiety, anger, and sadness. Additionally, three metrics provided by YouTube-the number of views, likes, and comments-were used as proxies representing user engagement. Our regression analysis results displayed that the medical YouTubers' analytical thinking was positively associated with the number of views. Regarding emotion, anxiety was positively correlated with the number of likes and comments, while both positive emotion and anger were negatively associated with the number of views. Finally, both positive and negative emotions of medical YouTubers were found to be positively correlated with the corresponding emotions of their viewers. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed within the context of COVID-19.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313857
spellingShingle Seung Woo Chae
Noriko Hara
Harshit Rakesh Shiroiya
Janice Chen
Ellen Ogihara
Being vulnerable with viewers: Exploring how medical YouTubers communicated about COVID-19 with the public.
PLoS ONE
title Being vulnerable with viewers: Exploring how medical YouTubers communicated about COVID-19 with the public.
title_full Being vulnerable with viewers: Exploring how medical YouTubers communicated about COVID-19 with the public.
title_fullStr Being vulnerable with viewers: Exploring how medical YouTubers communicated about COVID-19 with the public.
title_full_unstemmed Being vulnerable with viewers: Exploring how medical YouTubers communicated about COVID-19 with the public.
title_short Being vulnerable with viewers: Exploring how medical YouTubers communicated about COVID-19 with the public.
title_sort being vulnerable with viewers exploring how medical youtubers communicated about covid 19 with the public
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313857
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