Social media can provide a resource for characterizing communities
and targeted populations through activities and content
shared online. For instance, studying the armed forces’ use
of social media may provide insights into their health and
wellbeing. In this paper, we address three broad research
questions: (1) How do military populations use social media?
(2) What topics do military users discuss in social media? (3)
Do military users talk about health and well-being differently
than civilians? Military Twitter users were identified through
keywords in the profile description of users who posted geotagged
tweets at military installations. These military tweets
were compared with the tweets from remaining population. Our analysis
indicate that military users talk more about military related responsibilities and events, whereas non-military users talk more about school,
work, and leisure activities. A significant difference in online
content generated by both populations was identified, involving
sentiment, health, language, and social media features.
Revised: March 28, 2018 |
Published: September 15, 2017
Citation
Pavalanathan U., V.V. Datla, S. Volkova, L.E. Charles-Smith, M.A. Pirrung, J.J. Harrison, and A.R. Chappell, et al. 2017.Studying Military Community Health, Well-being, and Discourse through the Social Media Lens. In Public Health Intelligence and the Internet. Lecture Notes in Social Networks, edited by A Shaban-Nejad, J Brownstein and D Buckeridge. 87-105. Cham:Springer.PNNL-SA-119954.doi:10.1007/978-3-319-68604-2_6