| Literature DB >> 30320201 |
Tatiana Basáñez1, Anuja Majmundar1, Tess Boley Cruz1, Jennifer B Unger1.
Abstract
E-cigarettes were initially introduced as a less harmful alternative to combustible cigarettes, but marketing efforts may now be exceeding these claims by associating e-cigarettes with words related to healthy foods. These associations could mislead people to assume vaping is a healthy practice. Tweets from January to March 2017 were obtained from the Twitter Streaming Application Programming Interface (API) to assess content about vaping linked to healthy food words. Tweets were classified into one of nine categories along with their source (marketer vs. non-marketer). We content analyzed original English language public postings on Twitter that included vaping-related keywords and at least one of eight co-occurring healthy food-related labels (e.g., 'natural,' 'vitamin,' 'vegan,' and 'organic') (N = 1205). Chi-square analyses compared themes by message source. Findings suggest vaping is being marketed in ways that could paradoxically lead consumers to believe that e-cigarettes are health-enhancing. We found more tweets representing vaping as health-enhancing (9%) than referring to it as a smoking-cessation device (1%). The largest category of tweets referred to vaping as harmless (28%) and therefore compatible with a healthy lifestyle. Tweets presenting vaping as harmless or with a sensation theme were more likely to be authored by marketers than by non-marketers. Food and drug regulation needs to be more vigilant to prevent misleading advertising from e-cigarette marketers.Entities:
Keywords: Content analysis; Electronic cigarettes; Marketing; Social media; Twitter; Vaping
Year: 2018 PMID: 30320201 PMCID: PMC6180293 DOI: 10.1016/j.abrep.2018.09.007
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Addict Behav Rep ISSN: 2352-8532
Fig. 1Overall process for collecting tweets for content analysis.
Fig. 2Sample of Twitter content about vaping that used healthy food words (Jan 20–March 13, 2017).
Summary of results based on content analysis of tweets about vaping.
| Sentiment about vaping | Number of tweets ( | (%) | Marketing source of the tweet (frequency) | Non-marketing source of the tweet (frequency) | Chi-square (comparing each category against all others, by source of the tweet) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health enhancing | 110 | (9%) | 68 | 42 | 2.54, |
| Harmless | 343 | (28%) | 221 | 122 | 18.67, |
| Less harmful than cigarettes/other inhaled substances | 28 | (2%) | 17 | 11 | 0.43, |
| Youth-resonant | 128 | (11%) | 68 | 60 | 0.13, |
| Sensations | 276 | (23%) | 222 | 54 | 96.35, |
| Humorous non-critical | 127 | (11%) | 4 | 123 | 151.64, |
| Humorous critical | 68 | (6%) | 5 | 63 | 64.92, |
| Smoking cessation | 12 | (1%) | 5 | 7 | 0.82, |
| Other | 113 | (9%) | 48 | 65 | |
| Total | 658 | 547 |
Note. N.s. = not statistically significant per the Chi-square distribution table. At 1 degree of freedom the critical value for the chi-square statistic is 6.63 for statistical significance p < .01; and 3.84 for p < .05.
Examples of vaping tweets categorized by theme.
| Examples | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | E-cigs maybe better for you than organic produce! | |
| 2 | Put vitamins into vape juice so teens get their nutrients | |
| 3 | 100% Natural #medicine E-cig #HealthyLiving #killcancer | |
| 1 | I vape since its gluten free | |
| 2 | In this image you can see the ingredients of e-liquid they are completely harmless to us and natural | |
| 3 | If someone vapes and is a vegan, which one do they tell you about first? Trick question! The answer is Crossfit. | |
| 1 | − Hey, you're so unhealthy, | |
| 2 | He wants to vape with something known to be more natural (kicks the tobacco) | |
| 3 | Switching From Smoking to Vaping Reduces Your Carcinogens #Organic #Health #Cooking #Food A new study in X | |
| 1 | Why are people suddenly vaping vitamins? Can someone explain? Is this really stupid or am I getting old? | |
| 2 | Yuck! My future husband vapes? WTF? | |
| 3 | I met a vegan vaping millennial Crossfitter. Where did humankind go wrong? | |
| 1 | #tea #bath #vape #cook #bale #smoke FOR #organic #spiritual #conscious SO U CAN #quitsmoking #yoga #herbalism #spliffspliff | |
| 2 | #StopSmoking and #BlowLiquidKloudz #Vape #Mississippi #LiquidKloudz #eJuice is #AllNatural | |
| 3 | @veganXXX I feel you man, that's why I vape. I always got insomnia when I tried to quit and jimmy legs. | |
| 1 | We'll pick up organic vape fluid from mind, body, geode and get cage-free tapas, suh dude u in? | |
| 2 | Taste Rainbows - #vitamins #natural #smoke #alternative #vape | |
| 3 | Inhale The Future - #vitamins #natural #smoke #alternative #model #fashion #vape | |
| 1 | Freshly Picked e-liquids in a vibrant collection of balanced, natural fruit flavors | |
| 2 | Hope you got my email. Let's vape organic cold filtered coconut juice in Gastown sometime soon. | |
| 3 | Are there any flavored vapes that are organic and free of vg and pg? Saw some that are cookies n cream flavored and want | |
| 1 | I'm a vegan transgender atheist German engineer who vapes organic decaffeinated compressed soy milk on the regular, and I'm offended | |
| 2 | Get me more non-GMO organic quinoa vape juice. Just finished a batch with my surrogate mother and my rabbi. | |
| 3 | She would also call a burp an organic vape | |
Note. These are paraphrases to protect the identity of Twitter authors.