Characterizing COVID-19 Content Posted to TikTok: Public Sentiment and Response During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic - PubMed (original) (raw)

Observational Study

Characterizing COVID-19 Content Posted to TikTok: Public Sentiment and Response During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Lauren Southwick et al. J Adolesc Health. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to characterize COVID-19 content posted by users and disseminated via TikTok, a social media platform that has become known largely as an entertainment platform for viral video-sharing. We sought to capture how TikTok videos posted during the initial months of the COVID pandemic changed over time as cases accelerated.

Methods: This study is an observational analysis of sequential TikTok videos with #coronavirus from January to March 2020. Videos were independently coded to assess content (e.g., health relatedness, humor, fear, empathy), misinformation, and public sentiment. To assess engagement, we also codified how often videos were shared relative to their content.

Results: We coded 750 videos and approximately one in four videos tagged with #coronavirus featured health-related content such as featuring objects such as face masks, hand sanitizer, and other cleaning products. Most videos evoked "humor/parody," whereas 15% and 6% evoked "fear" and "empathy", respectively. TikTok videos posted in March 2020 had the largest number of shares and comments compared with January and February 2020. The proportion of shares and comments for "misleading and incorrect information" featured in videos was lower in March than in January and February 2020. There was no statistical difference between the share and comment counts of videos coded as "incorrect/incomplete" and "correct" over the entire time period.

Conclusions: Analyzing readily available social media platforms, such as TikTok provides real-time insights into public views, frequency and types of misinformation, and norms toward COVID-19. Analyzing TikTok videos has the potential to be used to inform public health messaging and public health mitigation strategies.

Keywords: COVID-19; Health messaging; Infodemic; Social media; TikTok.

Copyright © 2021 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

Screenshots of “incorrect, misleading” labeled TikTok videos and of “intended to inform” labeled TikTok videos.

Figure 2

Figure 2

The most frequently used hashtags for videos coded as “intended to inform.” The size of the world correlates with its relative frequency compared with other words in the total set of words contributed by the video captions.

Figure 3

Figure 3

TikTok video caption word clouds from January, February, and March 2020. The size of the world correlates with its relative frequency compared with other words in the total set of words contributed by the video captions.

References

    1. Nabity-Grover T., Cheung C.M.K., Thatcher J.B. Inside out and outside in: How the COVID-19 pandemic affects self-disclosure on social media. Int J Inf Manage. 2020;55:102188. -PMC -PubMed
    1. Wiederhold B.K. Social media use during social distancing. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Network. 2020;23:275–276. -PubMed
    1. Survey Shows Parents Alarmed as Kids’ screen time Skyrockets during COVID-19 crisis - ParentsTogether. https://parents-together.org/survey-shows-parents-alarmed-as-kids-screen... Available at:
    1. Ostrovsky A.M., Chen J.R. TikTok and its role in COVID-19 information Propagation. J Adolesc Heal. 2020;67:730. -PMC -PubMed
    1. Most U.S. Teens who use cellphones do it to pass time, connect with others, learn new things | Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/23/most-u-s-teens-who-use-... Available at:

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources