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Effects of View Count and Comment Valence on Perceptions of Personal Health Narratives Online (Extended Abstract)

Sat, May 26, 9:30 to 10:45, Hilton Prague, Floor: LL, Roma

Abstract

As social media communication continues to play an increasing role in navigating and negotiating health-related content online, this experimental study (N = 137) looked into the effect of two popularity metrics (view count and comment valence) at different stages of the content selection process on YouTube (pre-selection and post-selection) on the credibility of personal health narratives, perceptions of people suffering from mental illness and empathic understanding of their hardship in everyday life. Results indicate that, while both popularity metrics are relevant, they may affect different perception and judgment processes, with the more information-rich post-selection metric of comment valence being more important for more elaborate judgments.

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