The Influence of Social Media in Healthcare

 

My research topic is the influence of social media in healthcare. Something I noticed when the COVID pandemic started was that many people were getting their information from social media platforms. This led me to question if, with the rise of technology and the fact that social media has become such a crucial part of everyday life, if the information found in these platforms has an effect on the way people think about healthcare. 

 

Database: Health and Medicine

• Search: social media and healthcare
• Limiters
  • Fulltext
  • Subject: social media
• Results: 168
• The search proved to be somewhat helpful, it just takes a long time to go through the material. There is not a lot of research done in the field of healthcare and social media. It is a relatively new area of study, and there are many different directions in which researchers and other professionals can take their research in. While there are 168 results, less than 2/3 of those are not regarding what I want to research. However, there I was also able to find some good sources. The only setback is that I had to go through many sources I would not use. I would say that while helpful, the search was barely relevant. I know the research could be more saturated, but since this is such a broad, understudied topic, I was afraid that if I oversaturated I would not be able to find any useful information. 

 

Database: Communication and Mass Media Complete

• Search: how social media affects healthcare
• Limiters
  • Fulltext 
  • Publication date: from 2018-2021
  • Subject: COVID-19
• Results: 36
• This search proved to be generally useful. While I did not find much directly related to my area of research, I did find a lot of background information that I will need in order to explain what has been going on and why social media is now such a big part when it comes to healthcare. I found sources explaining how this problem came to be. When it came to my specific subject, the search was mostly barely relevant, but for the sake of the research as a whole and understanding the problem, the search was generally relevant. I think the search was pretty saturated. However, if I did, I think the results would not be very relevant. 

 

Database: Communication and Mass Media Complete

• Search: social media and public opinion 
• Limiters
  • Fulltext
  • Publication date: 2014-2021
  • Subject: health attitudes
• Results: 32
• This search turned out to be pretty spot on. I found some great articles that dove into the relationship between social media and public opinion, and how this is affecting healthcare. From the misinformation found in these platforms to the way people interact with one another, many of the articles found here covered all of it. They also explained how the information found in these platforms can influence the way people seek healthcare, how they view a disease, or which treatments they are willing to participate in. The majority of the articles in this search could provide useful information to my research. I think the search was pretty saturated, and it provided great results

 

Database: Communication and Mass Media

• Search: fakes news and social media
• Limiters
  • Full text
  • Subject: COVID-19 pandemic
• Results: 13
• I would say the research was generally relevant. There were not many articles, to begin with, but about half of the ones were useful, mainly in providing important background information. Most of the articles focused on the spread of fake news related to COVID and the effect they had on people, from mistrust to convincing users to partake in unhealthy practices. Many of the information found here proved to be useful because they highlight the role social media plays when it comes to the spread of fake news and because many of them discuss the effects this content is having in our society. Overall, it was a pretty good search, and I think it was well saturated. 

 

Database: Medline

• Search: public opinion and healthcare 
• Limiters:
  • Linked full text
  • Publication date: 2010-2021
• Results: 102
• This search was mostly barely relevant. I was looking for articles that discussed the relationship between public opinion and healthcare, or how one can influence the other, or maybe something related to how public opinion regarding healthcare is being influenced, but I did not find anything along those lines. Truthfully, I did not find anything that would be useful for my research. However, I still consider the search useful because it showed me an area where content is lacking, so I can take that into consideration when working. I can also go look into different databases and do the same search and see if it will yield results there. If not, then I will have to change the search in hopes of getting a result.  

 

Annotated Bibliography

 

Smailhodzic, E., Hooijsma, W., Boonstra, A., & Langley, D. J. (2016). Social media use in healthcare: A systematic review of effects on patients and on their relationship with healthcare professionals. BMC Health Services Research, 16(1). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A463819000/HRCA?u=klnb_fhsuniv&sid=bookmark-HRCA&xid=6f53423d

The article cited above deals with the effects social media is having on the relationship between patients and healthcare professionals, both positive and negative. On one hand, using social media proved beneficial because people found support, emotional comfort, and even harmonious relationships with their providers and other members of the community that might be undergoing similar illnesses to them. They also had access to a great deal of information. This proved beneficial in some cases, but it also proved to be harmful because on occasions, it led to patients dropping their doctors and looking for alternative solutions that could have been more harmful than good. On occasions, it also led to more distrust than there originally was. 

 

This article will be useful for my research because it looks into the relationship between patients and doctors, and how this one is being affected by the content, these people access through social media. Sure, it proves to be beneficial in some cases, and some doctors even encourage it, but it can also be detrimental and sometimes even dangerous. 

 

Van Scoy, L. J., Snyder, B., Miller, E. L., Toyobo, O., Grewel, A., Ha, G., Gillespie, S., Patel, M., Reilly, J., Zgierska, A. E., & Lennon, R. P. (2021). Public anxiety and distrust due to perceived politicization and media sensationalism during early COVID-19 media messaging. Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 14(3), 193–205. https://doi-org.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/10.1080/17538068.2021.1953934

 

The article cited above dives into understanding the role of the media and its portrayal of the COVID pandemic and how this created an even bigger distrust of medicine and credible sources as a whole. It also discusses how much of the information presented in these platforms has been polarized and politicized, causing people to distrust the information and creating an overall sense of anxiety and other issues. 

 

The reason why this could be useful for my research is because it looks at how the information presented through different platforms, including social media, is being polarized and how it’s affecting people on the other side of the screen. It also discusses how the politicization of the content presented has a big say on how people are going to respond to it, for better or for worse. 

 

van der Meer, T. G. L. A., & Jin, Y. (2020). Seeking Formula for Misinformation Treatment in Public Health Crises: The Effects of Corrective Information Type and Source. Health Communication, 35(5), 560–575. https://doi-org.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/10.1080/10410236.2019.1573295

 

The article cited above deals with the effect of misinformation in social media and what is the best way to correct said misinformation. It also dives into all the issues and potential ones that this kind of misinformation causes for the person on the other side of the screen. It also compares the information found in social media with other media (such as TV or major newspapers) to see who has the most credible information. Lastly, it looks into the different methods people and social media platforms can “fight back” the misinformation and which ones are more effective. 

 

The reason why I would use this in my research is because it highlights the damaging effect of the misinformation found in social media. It also compares the information found in social media with the information found in other media sources. I particularly like that because it shows that while, yes, TV or newspapers can present misleading information to maybe swing their audiences in a certain direction, they are still more reliable than social media. Part of that is the fact that there are no regulations regarding the kind of context that can be posted on social media versus other media platforms. 

 

Ben Messaoud, M. (2021). Social media and the COVID-19 pandemic: The dilemma of fake news clutter vs. social responsibility. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 14(1), 25–45. https://doi-org.ezproxy.fhsu.edu/10.1386/jammr_00023_1

 

This article mainly focuses on the relationship between fake news and social media, as this kind of news starts to become the main source of information for people on the other side of the screen. It also goes into all the effort mainstream media now has to go through in order to validate the news and make sure they are correct. Then the article goes into discussing how the COVID pandemic made the issue of fake news even direr and the struggles that came with that. It also goes into the effect this news is having on the public and how we can stop the spread of this news. 

 

Bantimaroudis, P. (2021). Conspiratorial Discourses on Social Media: Agendamelding Explorations and COVID-19. International journal of communication [Online], 3621+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A679119473/HRCA?u=klnb_fhsuniv&sid=bookmark-HRCA&xid=7a36e35c

This article focuses on the conspiracy theories found in social media regarding healthcare, more specifically, the COVID-19 pandemic. The article explains how social media platforms have provided a home for these theories to grow and spread, and the consequences these are having in real life. The research also looks at the demographics, ideologies, and other social factors as indicators to predict the kind of people who will interact with this kind of content.  

 

While this article dives into researching how social media is feeding into conspiracy theories that go on to have very real consequences, the reason why I think it would do a great addition to my research is because this is the first article I found that looks into the demographics and other social factors of the people engaging with this content. I think it is important to look at these factors because I believe they have a huge impact when it comes to this subject. I am very excited that I was finally able to find content regarding that.