TRUSTWORTHINESS AND AUTHORITATIVENESS OF YOUTUBE VIDEOS ON SMOKELESS TOBACCO

Donghua Tao, Prajakta Adsul, Ricardo Wray, Keri Jupka, Carolyn Semar, Kathryn Goggins

Saint Louis University

Introduction YouTube™ is a popular social media website

with the largest collection of user-generated videos accessible to anyone with Internet access.

Depictions of tobacco in YouTube™ videos has affected tobacco use behaviors of young adults as evident in past research.

The trustworthiness and authoritativeness of videos on YouTube™ remains unclear.

This study explored the attributes of YouTube™ videos about smokeless tobacco products (STP) and their relationship with videos’ trustworthiness and authoritativeness.

Methods

Search 17 search terms with variations were

used based on existing literature, to ensure comprehensive results.

Chaw Chew Chewing Commercial Commercials Dip Dipping Dissolvable Leaf Lozenge Plug Roll Smokeless Snuff Snuffing Snus Twist

Methods

Sampling 3603 unique videos were retrieved

between October and December 2011 (from videos uploaded in the past 6 months)

Randomly sampled 433 videos Of which, 278 were included based on

inclusion criteria (inter-rater reliability for inclusion was achieved with Cohen’s Kappa >=0.8 )

Methods

Data Collecting Each retrieved video was recorded with

an open source video downloading software FreeStudio

The video page was screenshot with metadata, including number of views, ratings, number of times a video was selected as a favorite, and number of comments

Methods – Data Analysis

Numeric data – YouTube Metadata SPSS 20.0

Textual data: coding Predefined codebook, with questions about

1) video’s message content (e.g. pro or against STP), 2) production values (e.g. video quality), and 3) source factors (e.g. author/sponsor of the video, if the video references other videos)

Inter-coder reliability achieved with Krippendorf’s alpha of more than 0.8

ResultsVideo’s message content

ResultsVideo’s production value

ResultsSource factor

ResultsMetadata description

Results - Correlations (Spearman’s rho) Positive correlation between pro STP videos

and No. of favorite (r=0.16, p<0.01)

Results - Correlations (Spearman’s rho) Positive correlation between professional-

generated videos and ratings (r=0.18, p<0.01)

Positive correlation between videos with author name, contact info, and referencing other videos, etc. & ratings (r=0.15, p<0.01)

Results - Correlations (Spearman’s rho)

Positive correlation between videos with author name, contact info, and referencing other videos, etc. & No. of comments (r=0.19, p<0.01)

Results - Correlations (Spearman’s rho)

Discussion

YouTube users like videos that favor STP use. High quality (Professional-generated) videos

received higher ratings ->

Hypothesis 1: viewers are more likely to trust

the information disseminated by high quality

videos.

Discussion Videos with author or contact information,

inviting feedback from viewers, and referencing other YouTube users received higher ratings and more comments than those without this information ->

Hypothesis 2: viewers trust videos with author or

contact information, inviting feedback from

viewers, and referencing other YouTube users; and

perceived they were more authoritative.

Discussion – Research Implication

Production value (quality of video)

Source factors (e.g. video authors, referencing other videos, etc.)

Video metadata (# of views, # of comments, ratings, etc.)

Trustworthiness and authoritativeness

Persuasiveness

Use & Apply

Discussion – Practical Implications Evaluation criteria on health-related

media materials

Medical librarians teach healthcare consumers how to evaluate online media information that is related to health and wellbeing (e.g. YouTube videos)?

Use online media as a tool to educate healthcare consumers healthy life styles and behaviors to promote health and wellbeing.

Future Studies Survey real YouTube users about these

sampled STP videos on their perceptions on trustworthiness and authoritativeness of the videos.

Test the hypotheses.

Study influence of YouTube™ videos on young people’s health behavior.

*An ongoing dissertation study on the influence of

content of the comments on viewers of YouTube

videos.