Third International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

This work examines how social media, particularly Twitter, is used for health information and communication. A quantitative content analysis and a social network analysis was performed on 1089 user profiles who used the hashtag #SaludTues. Salud Tuesday is a weekly chat that discusses health topics and issues for Latino communities in the United States. Tweets were recollected from September 13 to October 13, 2017, using the Netlytic software. A total of 4628 tweets were sent during the analyzed period. Results show that the most recurrent members of the #SaludTues community were mostly organizations (44%) and individuals (43%). Users that frequently posted regarding #SaludTues where health institutions (24%), citizens (18%), educators (9%), and professionals (6%). Tweets were mainly positive, and the most frequently used words were health, kids, Latino, healthy, join, and chat. The most recurrent posters (out-degree) and mentioned users (in-degree) were organizations, like @minorityhealth and @saludamerica. Other network characteristics such as diameter, density, and centralization were analyzed. For instance, diameter of the network was 11, this measure indicates the size of the network, and it calculates the longest distance between two members of the network. This research project helps to identify key influencers in the development of effective health strategies and campaigns through social media for specific communities. Social network analysis helps to understand how particular communities are built and how their properties impact the communication between members.