News media stories about cancer on Facebook: How does story framing influence response framing, tone and attributions of responsibility?

This content analysis explored associations between the framing of cancer-related health news stories on Facebook and their corresponding comments. It was found that regardless of story framing the majority of responses involved users engaging in debate and discussion rather than sharing personal experiences. Furthermore, stories framed episodically had a greater proportion of both supportive and unsupportive comments than stories framed thematically. As predicted, episodic stories were associated with more attributions of responsibility directed towards the individual whereas thematic stories lead to more societal-level attributions of blame. Contrary to predictions, responses did not contribute towards the stigmatisation of lung cancer, instead more responses were aimed at reducing stigma for this illness. Within the findings strong beliefs about cancer treatment and management were also identified, which raises concern over the spread of misinformation. Overall, this research provided insight into the framing of cancer news and highlighted potential implications of Facebook comments.