To Retweet or Not to Retweet: Understanding What Features of Cardiovascular Tweets Influence their Retransmission

• In Event: Trick or Tweet? Network and Crowd Dynamics

Abstract

With 328 million average monthly active users, Twitter is listed as one of the top four social networking sites (SNSs), yet little is known about what cardiovascular tweets go viral and what characteristics are associated with the retransmission. The current study aims to identify a function of the observable characteristics of cardiovascular tweets, including characteristics of the source, content, and style in predicting the retransmission of these tweets. We drew a random sample of 1,251 tweets associated with cardiovascular disease originating from the U.S. in 2013. Automated coding was conducted on the affect values of the tweets as well as the presence/absence of any URL, mention of another user, question mark, exclamation mark, and hashtag. We hand-coded the tweets’ novelty, utility, theme and source. The count of retweets was positively predicted by message utility, health organization source, and mention of user handle, but negatively predicted by the presence of URL and non-health organization source. Regarding theme, compared to the tweets focusing on risk factor, tweets on treatment and management predicted fewer retweets while supportive tweets predicted more retweets. From the diffusion of innovations perspective, the study sheds light on using twitter to disseminate cardiovascular educational and supportive information to improve public health.

Authors

• Qinghua Yang, Texas Christian University

• Christopher Tufts, U of Pennsylvania

• Lyle Ungar, U of Pennsylvania

• David Asch, U of Pennsylvania

• Alison Buttenheim, U of Pennsylvania

• Frances Barg, U of Pennsylvania

• Nandita Mitra, U of Pennsylvania

• Raina Merchant, U of Pennsylvania