Journal article
The Case of a Mass Shooting and Violence-Related Mental Illness Stigma on Twitter
Stigma and health (Washington, D.C.), v 4(4), pp 411-420
01 Nov 2019
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
To determine how mental illness (MI) stigma messaging on Twitter manifests after a mass shooting, using the Fort Lauderdale Airport shooting (January 6, 2017) as a case study, we collected publicly available tweets about mental health/illness between December 23, 2016 and January 20, 2017 published from Florida (shooting location) and Virginia (comparison state; N = 38,634). We manually coded 3,283 tweets to build machine learning models to classify the remaining tweets by tweet topic and MI stigma messaging and assessed state-specific trends in these areas. We used logistic regression to determine which tweets were retweeted most frequently after the shooting. Violence-related MI stigma messaging increased sharply in both states (113% increase in Florida (9.8 percentage points), 300% in Virginia (12 percentage points) following the shooting. Tweets containing violence-related MI stigma messaging also had increased odds of being retweeted. Violence-related MI stigma messaging on Twitter increased after the Fort Lauderdale shooting and transcended the geographic location of the shooting event. Violence-related MI stigma messaging also had increased odds of reaching a larger audience, suggesting widespread endorsement of this stigma. This demonstrates a need for advocacy for violence-related MI stigma reduction on social media following mass shootings.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- The Case of a Mass Shooting and Violence-Related Mental Illness Stigma on Twitter
- Creators
- Alexandra Budenz - Drexel UniversityJonathan Purtle - Drexel UniversityAnn Klassen - Drexel UniversityElad Yom-Tov - MicrosoftMichael Yudell - Drexel UniversityPhilip Massey - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Stigma and health (Washington, D.C.), v 4(4), pp 411-420
- Publisher
- Educational Publishing Foundation-American Psychological Assoc
- Number of pages
- 10
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Health Management and Policy; Community Health and Prevention; Center for Science, Technology, and Society
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000648760400007
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85075023235
- Other Identifier
- 991019168277304721
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- Collaboration types
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Psychology, Social
- Public, Environmental & Occupational Health