Perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: Vaping case study
Background The social media landscape is now ubiquitous in people’s everyday lives. It is a space where culture, politics, economics and sociological and public health discourses occur. There is mounting evidence that e-cigarette products are being promoted and advertised on social media, a media p...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
BioMed Central
2024
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94661 |
| _version_ | 1848765897390424064 |
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| author | Jancey, Jonine Crawford, Gemma Bowman, Elizabeth Wolf, Katharina Leaver, Tama Bialous, Stella McCausland, Kahlia |
| author_facet | Jancey, Jonine Crawford, Gemma Bowman, Elizabeth Wolf, Katharina Leaver, Tama Bialous, Stella McCausland, Kahlia |
| author_sort | Jancey, Jonine |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Background
The social media landscape is now ubiquitous in people’s everyday lives. It is a space where culture, politics, economics and sociological and public health discourses occur. There is mounting evidence that e-cigarette products are being promoted and advertised on social media, a media platform particularly popular with young people. Our research aimed to understand industry professionals’ perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies using vaping as a case study.
Methods
A critical realist perspective guided reflexive thematic analysis of the qualitative in depth, semi structured interviews. Data collection occurred in January and February 2023 with 13 participants working in the areas of public health, digital media, law, governance, tobacco control and advocacy.
Results
Two superordinate themes emerged from the data: (1) Fathoming a complex system (social media) that contained the subordinate themes of Traversing Boundaries (crossing borders, crossing sectors) and Ungovernable (global and local landscapes, vested interests, self-regulation and opacity). (2) Addressing complexity (social media)– that contained the subordinate themes of Strengthening Institutions (global to local, policy and legislation, individuals and organisations); Defanging Industry (responsibility and transparency, moderation and algorithms, complaints); and Engaging Citizens (raising awareness, framing messaging).
Conclusions
There was consensus among participants that e-cigarette related social media content can be harmful and government action is urgently needed. There was an identified need for the development of government led national-level regulatory frameworks, with government led appropriate legislation; identification of an organisation or organisations with suitable levels of regulatory power and resources to monitor, enforce and penalise noncompliant social media companies; accompanied by increased community awareness raising of harmful social media content and improved digital literacy. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:42:33Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-94661 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:42:33Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | BioMed Central |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-946612024-04-24T05:37:19Z Perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: Vaping case study Jancey, Jonine Crawford, Gemma Bowman, Elizabeth Wolf, Katharina Leaver, Tama Bialous, Stella McCausland, Kahlia Background The social media landscape is now ubiquitous in people’s everyday lives. It is a space where culture, politics, economics and sociological and public health discourses occur. There is mounting evidence that e-cigarette products are being promoted and advertised on social media, a media platform particularly popular with young people. Our research aimed to understand industry professionals’ perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies using vaping as a case study. Methods A critical realist perspective guided reflexive thematic analysis of the qualitative in depth, semi structured interviews. Data collection occurred in January and February 2023 with 13 participants working in the areas of public health, digital media, law, governance, tobacco control and advocacy. Results Two superordinate themes emerged from the data: (1) Fathoming a complex system (social media) that contained the subordinate themes of Traversing Boundaries (crossing borders, crossing sectors) and Ungovernable (global and local landscapes, vested interests, self-regulation and opacity). (2) Addressing complexity (social media)– that contained the subordinate themes of Strengthening Institutions (global to local, policy and legislation, individuals and organisations); Defanging Industry (responsibility and transparency, moderation and algorithms, complaints); and Engaging Citizens (raising awareness, framing messaging). Conclusions There was consensus among participants that e-cigarette related social media content can be harmful and government action is urgently needed. There was an identified need for the development of government led national-level regulatory frameworks, with government led appropriate legislation; identification of an organisation or organisations with suitable levels of regulatory power and resources to monitor, enforce and penalise noncompliant social media companies; accompanied by increased community awareness raising of harmful social media content and improved digital literacy. 2024 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94661 10.1186/s12889-024-18362-8 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ BioMed Central fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Jancey, Jonine Crawford, Gemma Bowman, Elizabeth Wolf, Katharina Leaver, Tama Bialous, Stella McCausland, Kahlia Perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: Vaping case study |
| title | Perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: Vaping case study |
| title_full | Perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: Vaping case study |
| title_fullStr | Perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: Vaping case study |
| title_full_unstemmed | Perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: Vaping case study |
| title_short | Perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: Vaping case study |
| title_sort | perceptions of social media harms and potential management strategies: vaping case study |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/94661 |