What health-related information flows through you every day? A content analysis of microblog messages on air pollution

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the information about haze, a term used in China to describe the air pollution problem, is portrayed on Chinese social media by different types of organizations using the theoretical framework of the health belief model (HBM).

A content analysis was conducted based on the 756 posts retrieved from Sina Weibo, the top microbloging platform in China, following the simple random sampling method. χ2 analysis was conducted to examine the relationships across the three types of organizations (governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and corporations) and the use of the HBM concepts (perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, self-efficacy, and cues to action) in terms of haze and its threat to health.

The results of this study indicated that corporations posted more Weibo messages categorized as perceived benefit and most of these posts are related to their products, while governmental organizations posted fewer Weibo messages categorized as perceived severity.

This study provides health decision makers and media consumers with knowledge about how to use social media more effectively in terms of haze-related issues.

Given the severity of air pollution and the influential role microblogging takes, the study aims to fill the gap in the limited literature on haze information dissemination on social media in China. In addition, this study aims to shed theoretical light on HBM as applied to a non-westernized context.