How Americans encounter guns: Mixed methods content analysis of YouTube and internet search data

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Prev Med
• Personal Author:
  Ranney, Megan L. ; Conrey, Frederica R. ; Perkinson, Leah ; Friedhoff, Stefanie ; Smith, Rory ; Wardle, Claire
• Description:
  Firearm-related injury and death is a serious public health issue in the U.S. As more Americans consume news and media online, there is growing interest in using these channels to prevent firearm-related harms. Understanding the firearm-related narratives to which consumers are exposed is foundational to this work. This research used the browsing behavior of a representative sample of American adults to identify seven firearm-related content "ecosystems" (defined as naturally occurring networks of channels watched by the same users) on YouTube; we then described the demographics and internet search patterns of users affiliated with each ecosystem. Over the 9-month study period, 72,205 panelists had 16,803,075 person-video encounters with 7,274,093 videos. Among these, 282,419 were related to firearms. Using fast greedy clustering, we partitioned users and channel interactions into seven distinct channel-based content ecosystems that reached more than 1/1000 YouTube users per day. These ecosystems were diverse in reach, users, and content (e.g., guns for self-protection, guns for fun). On average, 0.5% of panelists performed a firearm-related internet search on a given day. The vast majority of searches were related to mass shootings or police-involved shootings (e.g., "active shooter"), and virtually none were about more common firearm harm such as suicide. Searches for firearm safety information were most common among panelists affiliated with the "Hunting & Fishing" and "Guns & Gear" ecosystems, which were watched primarily by older, white men. These findings identify an opportunity for analyzing firearm-related narratives and tailoring firearm safety messaging for users affiliated with specific online content ecosystems.
• Keywords:
  Adult Ecosystem Firearm Injury Firearms Firearm Safety Humans Male Network Analysis Police Social Media Suicide Prevention United States Violence Violence Prevention Wounds, Gunshot YouTube

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• Source:
  Prev Med. 165(Pt A):107258
• Pubmed ID:
  36103918
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC10618905
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  P20 GM139664/GM/NIGMS NIH HHSUnited States/ ; R01 CE003267/CE/NCIPC CDC HHSUnited States/ ; R24 HD087149/HD/NICHD NIH HHSUnited States/
• Volume:
  165
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:6bfff170e6076797124ec27f796d55e572247415efa41e208fe848950590d71f
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/134774/cdc_134774_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 216.05 KB ]