IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v263y2020ics027795362030469x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mental health discourse and social media: Which mechanisms of cultural power drive discourse on Twitter

Author

Listed:
  • Pavlova, Alina
  • Berkers, Pauwke

Abstract

The global burden of mental health disorders has increased steadily during the past decade. Today, mental illness is the leading cause of total years lived with disability. At the same time, global mental health policies and budgets fall short of addressing the societal burden as mental health discourse languishes in the shadows due to stigma. As social media have become an increasingly popular source of information, they create opportunities as well as threats for mental health discourse. On the one hand, social media can help to bring awareness to stigmatized topics as they give marginalized members of society the possibility to share experiences and voice their discontent. On the other hand, mental health discourse on social media may lead to stigmatization. To date, little is known about social media mental health discourse and what drives it. This study addresses these research gaps by (1) mapping the mental health discourse on Twitter and (2) analyzing mechanisms of cultural power through which some mental health topics take prevalence over the others. Drawing on Twitter data, this research employs innovative methods of topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and panel data regression analyses. Theoretically, it combines, in a multidisciplinary fashion, concepts such as emotional energy and cognitive focus from sociology and bandwagon behavior from economics. Our findings show that low-cost attention mechanisms are ineffective in fostering online mental health discourse, whereas emotional energy and discursive variability have a positive influence by engaging audiences, creating online solidarity, and speaking to worldviews of audiences from different walks of life. Social media mental health discourse is also shown to be quite diverse and more stigma-neutral than such discourse in traditional media.

Suggested Citation

  • Pavlova, Alina & Berkers, Pauwke, 2020. "Mental health discourse and social media: Which mechanisms of cultural power drive discourse on Twitter," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 263(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:263:y:2020:i:c:s027795362030469x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113250
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362030469X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113250?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Livingston, James D. & Boyd, Jennifer E., 2010. "Correlates and consequences of internalized stigma for people living with mental illness: A systematic review and meta-analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(12), pages 2150-2161, December.
    2. Croissant, Yves & Millo, Giovanni, 2008. "Panel Data Econometrics in R: The plm Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i02).
    3. Natalia Levina & Manuel Arriaga, 2014. "Distinction and Status Production on User-Generated Content Platforms: Using Bourdieu’s Theory of Cultural Production to Understand Social Dynamics in Online Fields," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 25(3), pages 468-488, September.
    4. Bail, Christopher A., 2016. "Cultural carrying capacity: Organ donation advocacy, discursive framing, and social media engagement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 280-288.
    5. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Engel, Elena & Gell, Sascha & Heiss, Raffael & Karsay, Kathrin, 2024. "Social media influencers and adolescents’ health: A scoping review of the research field," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    2. Araceli Galiano-Coronil & Manuela Ortega-Gil & Belén Macías-Varela & Rafael Ravina-Ripoll, 2023. "An approach for analysing and segmenting messages about the SDGs on Twitter from the perspective of social marketing," International Review on Public and Nonprofit Marketing, Springer;International Association of Public and Non-Profit Marketing, vol. 20(3), pages 635-658, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alessio Emanuele Biondo & Roberto Cellini & Tiziana Cuccia, 2020. "Choices on museum attendance: An agent‐based approach," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(4), pages 882-897, November.
    2. Trung X. Hoang & Nga V. T. Le, 2021. "Natural disasters and risk aversion: Evidence from Vietnam," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(3), pages 211-229, August.
    3. Thunström, Linda & Nordström, Jonas & Shogren, Jason F., 2015. "Certainty and overconfidence in future preferences for food," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 101-113.
    4. Robert Kaestner, 1995. "The Effects of Cocaine and Marijuana Use on Marriage and Marital Stability," NBER Working Papers 5038, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, 2011. "Homo Oeconomicus Adaptivus – Die Logik des Handelns bei veränderlichen Präferenzen," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_10, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    6. Assist. Prof. Dr. Eglantina Hysa & Oltiana Nikolli, M.A., 2014. "Trade Effect On Economic Growth Of Balkan Countries," Revista Tinerilor Economisti (The Young Economists Journal), University of Craiova, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 1(23), pages 109-120, November.
    7. Kanazawa, Satoshi, 2005. "Is "discrimination" necessary to explain the sex gap in earnings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 269-287, April.
    8. Dhaval M. Dave, 2013. "Effects of Pharmaceutical Promotion: A Review and Assessment," NBER Working Papers 18830, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Giovanni Millo & Gaetano Carmeci, 2011. "Non-life insurance consumption in Italy: a sub-regional panel data analysis," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 273-298, September.
    10. Adrian Otoiu & Ramona Bere & Catalin Silvestru, 2017. "An Assessment of the First Round Impact of Innovation Industries on Europe’s Regional Economies," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 19(44), pages 289-289, February.
    11. Kristina Kocisova & Martina Pastyriková, 2020. "Determinants of non-performing loans in European Union countries," Proceedings of Economics and Finance Conferences 10913085, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    12. Sascha O. Becker & Irena Grosfeld & Pauline Grosjean & Nico Voigtländer & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2020. "Forced Migration and Human Capital: Evidence from Post-WWII Population Transfers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(5), pages 1430-1463, May.
    13. Steven N. Durlauf, 1996. "Statistical Mechanics Approaches to Socioeconomic Behavior," NBER Technical Working Papers 0203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Manolis Galenianos & Rosalie Liccardo Pacula & Nicola Persico, 2012. "A Search-Theoretic Model of the Retail Market for Illicit Drugs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1239-1269.
    15. Jonathan Guryan & Melissa S. Kearney, 2010. "Is Lottery Gambling Addictive?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 90-110, August.
    16. Borowiecki, Karol J. & Bakhshi, Hasan, 2018. "Did you really take a hit? Understanding how video games playing affects individuals," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 313-326.
    17. Collado, M. Dolores & Ortuño Ortin, Ignacio & Romeu, Andrés, 2008. "Vertical Transmission of Consumption Behavior and the Distribution of Surnames," UMUFAE Economics Working Papers 2651, DIGITUM. Universidad de Murcia.
    18. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/vbu6kd1s68o6r34k5bcm3iopv is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Peter Murrell, 1982. "Comparative growth and comparative advantage: Tests of the effects of interest group behavior on foreign trade patterns," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 35-53, March.
    20. Nela Filimon & Jordi López-Sintas & Carlos Padrós-Reig, 2011. "A test of Rosen’s and Adler’s theories of superstars," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 35(2), pages 137-161, May.
    21. Charles B. Blankart, 2013. "Oil and Vinegar: A Positive Fiscal Theory of the Euro Crisis," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 497-528, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:263:y:2020:i:c:s027795362030469x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.