ABSTRACT

This study investigated the content of parenting information shared on social media by identifying the range and frequency of topics shared by parenting-focused accounts on Twitter. Using the Twitter API, a universe of 675,069 tweets were gathered from 74 of the most-followed parenting-focused accounts, or “hubs,” from January 2016 to June 2018. Using a custom, semi-automated topic modeling approach, we identified the topics – and subtopics within topics – parenting hubs shared with their followers and investigated whether any meaningful differences in topical focus existed between accounts targeting mothers versus fathers. Results indicate that over one third of tweets were about Parenting Behavior and nearly one quarter about Health, with Entertainment, School and Motherhood and Fatherhood generally as less tweeted topics. Mother-focused accounts tweeted more about Health than father-focused accounts, which tweeted more than others about Entertainment. Implications for future parenting and social media research are discussed.

摘要

本研究通过确定 Twitter 上以育儿为重点的帐户共享主题的范围和频率，调查了社交媒体上共享的育儿信息的内容。使用 Twitter API，从 2016 年 1 月到 2018 年 6 月期间，从 74 个最受关注的育儿主题帐户（或“中心”）收集了 675,069 条推文。使用自定义的半自动主题建模方法，我们确定了育儿中心与其关注者分享主题以及主题中的子主题，并调查针对母亲和父亲的帐户之间在主题焦点上是否存在任何有意义的差异。结果表明，超过三分之一的推文是关于育儿行为的，近四分之一是关于健康的，其中娱乐、学校以及母性和父亲性通常是推文较少的主题。以母亲为中心的账户发布的有关健康的推文比以父亲为中心的账户发布的推文更多，后者比其他账户发布的有关娱乐的推文更多。讨论了对未来育儿和社交媒体研究的影响。