April 4-6, 2024 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Innovations in Health Communication
Innovations in Health Communication
Abstract: It’s Giving Credible: An Analysis of Perceived Credibility of Health-Related TikToks
As information is increasingly refracted and reframed through social media channels, how people judge the credibility of the health information served by searches of corporatized social media platforms is essential to individual and community health decision-making. One social media platform in particular, TikTok, rose to global popularity during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic primarily as entertainment (Southwick et al., 2021) and has also become a platform replete with people sharing health news and information, both personally and professionally (Southwick et al., 2021; Al-Rawi & Zemenchik, 2023). In 2021, TikTok.com, with its Discover search page, became the most accessed web domain, surpassing Google (Moreno, 2022).
Concepts of credibility and its measurement continue to evolve along with digital media platforms, and guidance from extant literature provides conflicting direction regarding the definition and measurement of credibility. This study answers questions about how credibility can be measured in this new digitally mediated age for health messages found on new prosumer short-video algorithmically driven video-sharing platforms (VSPs), such as TikTok. We ask, to what extent are source and content credibility measures from the extant literature reliable for measuring the credibility of health information on algorithmically driven short video platforms (VSPs) like TikTok? And we ask, to what degree are prosumers on algorithmically driven content-sharing platforms like TikTok able to recognize credible health information?
Utilizing media credibility scales from extant literature (Berlo, 1970; Gaziano & McGrath, 1986; McCroskey, 1996; McCroskey & Teven, 1999), a survey of 142 adults who use TikTok demonstrated that credibility measurement scales often used in communication research were reliable when applied to social media users’ credibility perceptions of TikTok videos about endometriosis. Based on the survey results, we further argue that social media users struggled to assess credible health information and relied on credibility cues from content creators rather than critical assessments of source expertise. Future research directions, including conducting focus groups and interviews to further uncover how TikTok users assess credibility when evaluating health information on social media, are discussed.
Concepts of credibility and its measurement continue to evolve along with digital media platforms, and guidance from extant literature provides conflicting direction regarding the definition and measurement of credibility. This study answers questions about how credibility can be measured in this new digitally mediated age for health messages found on new prosumer short-video algorithmically driven video-sharing platforms (VSPs), such as TikTok. We ask, to what extent are source and content credibility measures from the extant literature reliable for measuring the credibility of health information on algorithmically driven short video platforms (VSPs) like TikTok? And we ask, to what degree are prosumers on algorithmically driven content-sharing platforms like TikTok able to recognize credible health information?
Utilizing media credibility scales from extant literature (Berlo, 1970; Gaziano & McGrath, 1986; McCroskey, 1996; McCroskey & Teven, 1999), a survey of 142 adults who use TikTok demonstrated that credibility measurement scales often used in communication research were reliable when applied to social media users’ credibility perceptions of TikTok videos about endometriosis. Based on the survey results, we further argue that social media users struggled to assess credible health information and relied on credibility cues from content creators rather than critical assessments of source expertise. Future research directions, including conducting focus groups and interviews to further uncover how TikTok users assess credibility when evaluating health information on social media, are discussed.