Document Type

Article

Abstract

Purpose

The present study conducted a social media content analysis on videos describing the Mediterranean Diet (MedDiet) posted onYouTube.

Setting

YouTube TM online video sharing and social media platform.

Method

Three independent content experts evaluated 141 YouTube videos on the MedDiet in August 2020 utilizing standard rubric and protocol. Data abstracted include media source(s) of posted videos, and viewer exposure/engagement metrics. Information quality was measured by each content expert independently through use of the DISCERN instrument, a 16-item tool designed to assess reliability, dependability, and trustworthiness of an online source, scores were then aggregated for analysis.

Results

A majority of videos (n = 102, 72.3%) were educational in nature. A third of videos were less clear and less credible on information presented (n = 46, 32.6%). Most videos were posted by an individual (n = 79, 56%), and the majority of videos were rated as medium quality (n = 88, 62.4%). Overall level of user engagement as measured by number of “likes,” “dislikes,” and user comments varied widely across all sources of media. Exploratory correlation analysis suggests that the number of a video’s views, comments, likes, and dislikes are not correlated with quality.

Conclusion

Study findings suggest that MedDiet health promotion and education via YouTube has the potential to reach and inform clients; however, existing video content and quality varies significantly. Future intervention research focused on MedDiet should further examine possible predictors of high quality MedDiet content utilizing diverse online video sharing platforms.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/08901171221132113

Rights

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Citation/Publisher Attribution

Benajiba N, Alhomidi M, Alsunaid F, et al. Video clips of the Mediterranean Diet on YouTube TM: A social Media Content Analysis. American Journal of Health Promotion. 2022;0(0). doi:10.1177/08901171221132113

Download

Share

COinS