TY - JOUR
T1 - Health vlogs as social support for chronic illness management
AU - Huh, Jina
AU - Liu, Leslie S.
AU - Neogi, Tina
AU - Inkpen, Kori
AU - Pratt, Wanda
PY - 2014/8
Y1 - 2014/8
N2 - Studies have shown positive impact of video blogs (vlogs) on patient education. However, we know little on how patient-initiated vlogs shape the relationships among vloggers and viewers. We qualitatively analyzed 72 vlogs on YouTube by users diagnosed with HIV, diabetes, or cancer and 1,274 comments posted to the vlogs to understand viewers' perspectives on the vlogs.We found that the unique video medium allowed intense and enriched personal and contextual disclosure to the viewers, leading to strong community-building activities and social support among vloggers and commenters, both informationally and emotionally. Furthermore, the unique communication structure of the vlogs allowed ad hoc small groups to form, which showed different group behavior than typical text-based social media, such as online communities. We provide implications to the Health Care Industry (HCI) community on how future technologies for health vlogs could be designed to further support chronic illness management.
AB - Studies have shown positive impact of video blogs (vlogs) on patient education. However, we know little on how patient-initiated vlogs shape the relationships among vloggers and viewers. We qualitatively analyzed 72 vlogs on YouTube by users diagnosed with HIV, diabetes, or cancer and 1,274 comments posted to the vlogs to understand viewers' perspectives on the vlogs.We found that the unique video medium allowed intense and enriched personal and contextual disclosure to the viewers, leading to strong community-building activities and social support among vloggers and commenters, both informationally and emotionally. Furthermore, the unique communication structure of the vlogs allowed ad hoc small groups to form, which showed different group behavior than typical text-based social media, such as online communities. We provide implications to the Health Care Industry (HCI) community on how future technologies for health vlogs could be designed to further support chronic illness management.
KW - Chronic illness
KW - Health vlogs
KW - Peer-patient
KW - Youtube
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84906847399&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84906847399&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2630067
DO - 10.1145/2630067
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84906847399
SN - 1073-0516
VL - 21
JO - ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
JF - ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
IS - 4
M1 - 23
ER -
