YouTube content can help cope with a breast cancer diagnosis

The results of the study, conducted by Gureiker’s group at UPV/EHU, show the relevance of content published by the medical community and health-related organizations, as well as the importance of personal stories as a source of hope and support. The group emphasizes the need for “medicine to offer social media with truthful information that can be used.”

Professors from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), part of the interdisciplinary research group Gureiker, analyzed a playlist of 1,247 videos from around the world about breast cancer posted on YouTube. stores and offers when you want to review content about this disease, with the goal of identifying the videos that have the most communicative power and raise concerns for people posting and commenting on this topic.

In their study, they analyzed the communities that are created on YouTube around this topic and a researcher from the journalism department. Maria Ganzabal emphasizes that “there are two most influential communities or types of users.” One of them consists of “channels that perform a collective role, such as clinics, hospitals, foundations or patient associations, and the media.” And another community consists of “individual profiles, mostly doctors, although patients and some profiles of public figures, such as actress Shannen Doherty, also stand out,” he says.

Ganzabal explains that they found a significant group of communities of abused women “who feel the need to create content that talks about their own experiences.” These individual testimonials “describe the treatment of breast cancer, both those going through it and those who have overcome it, sharing their fears, struggles and hopes.” Other types of communities dedicated to providing information about nutrition and exercise related to this type of cancer are also mentioned.

An analysis of comments on YouTube videos found that the vast majority of them were “focused on gratitude for the valuable information provided.” Ganzabal believes it’s a “very appreciative community, there’s a lot of sisterhood, a lot of support and not a lot of hateful or harmful content.” And he emphasizes the importance of personal stories “as a source of hope and support for those people affected by this disease.”

You don’t always need to demonize social media

According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the most common type of carcinoma and the leading cause of cancer death among women worldwide. In 2022, 2.3 million cases will be diagnosed worldwide. Cancer diagnosis and treatment is highly stressful and potentially traumatic for those affected, and “causes lifelong suffering, which can be alleviated to some extent by turning to social media or platforms such as YouTube to search for specialized information and share information about the process.” that they had to experience or seek support from other women who are going through a similar situation,” the researchers say.

The results of this study show the relevance of the content published on YouTube by the medical community and health-related organizations. However, the TikTok video profile shows different trends: in another investigation by journalism researchers at the University of the Basque Country, they found more hate messages, more involvement of pseudo-doctors, etc.

According to the researchers, “medicine needs to turn to social media with truthful information that sick people can turn to.” “Social media should not always be demonized. It is important that the medical community talks about the problems of this disease or any other, organizes a series of content that can help women find information, as well as support, how best to cope with the disease,” concludes UPV/EHU professor Hanzabal.

The study, published in the prestigious scientific journal Profesional de la Información, was conducted using a social network analysis method. This methodology is based on “an algorithm that allows us to identify the most influential users on a topic. This algorithm analyzes how content interacts with each other and assigns a score to each video. The higher the authority of a video, the more content on the Internet is associated with it as a source of relevant information on the topic or associated with more videos that are considered a source of useful information about breast cancer, he explains. .