ASPO Abstracts
Detecting effective tobacco control messages via Linguistic Analysis and Item Response Theory
Category: Behavioral Science & Health Communication
Conference Year: 2019
Abstract Body:
Introduction: Current health communication research on tobacco control often examines thepersuasion effects of messages in an experimental setting, which produces small effect sizes andlimits the external validity of how well the tested messages will perform in real word settings. Inthe new media landscape, (anti)smoking and (anti)vaping messages are posted, shared, and disseminatedacross media platforms by a broader set of users. Tracking the persuasion effects of each messagecan be challenging with the experimental approaches. Novel analytic methods are needed toevaluate the effective strategies for tobacco control communication. We apply linguistic analysis anditem-response theory to antismoking/antivaping messages to detect their persuasion effects on cognitive and emotional outcomes at an individual message level. Methods: We recruited respondents from social media and crowdsourcing platforms (n=6,566).The eligible current smokers were randomly assigned to one of the 80 antismoking and antivaping messages, or 16 food advertisements (the control group). We measured attitudes toward vaping/smoking, emotional arousal, and intention to quit smoking or vape. We mined textdata from each stimulus message to examine their linguistic characteristics and its links to thepersuasion outcomes. Results: Majority of participants were White (86%) and female (55%). Antismoking messageswere more likely to reveal anxiety (p=.01) and dangers or concerns (p<.01), compared to thecontrol messages; and express high expertise and confidence compared to antivaping messages(p=.04). We report linguistic properties of each message and their relationship to antismokingattitudes, emotional arousal, intention to quit cigarettes, and intention to vape. Visualized patterns ofmessage effectiveness demonstrate text/image-based antivaping messages, compared to video-based antivapingmessages, unintentionally increased participants' favorable attitudes toward e-cigarettes. Conclusions: These message-level analyses can help identify best candidate messages thatgenerate positive persuasion outcomes, which, in turn, can inform the selection of messages forhealth education and campaigns.
Keywords: tobacco control,vaping, message-testing, newmedia