2018, Vol.17, No.1

Health Communication Research 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 0.73

pISSN : 2093-2707 / eISSN : 2671-5856
https://journal.kci.go.kr/hcr

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of socioeconomic factors and digital media literacy on health information seeking behavior (HISB) through search engines and social networking services (SNS), and whether social support and life satisfaction as outcomes of HISB can be obtained through HISB using search engines and SNS. A nationwide online questionnaire was conducted on 1,000 male and female adults to obtain the data for this study. Results of this study demonstrated that women were more likely to seek health information using search engines than men were. The older the participants were, the more likely it was that they looked for health information using SNS as opposed to using a search engine. Access and creating dimension of digital media literacy had a positive impact on HISB via SNS, but understanding dimension of digital media literacy had a positive impact on HISB via search engines. HISB via SNS has more influence on information support and emotional support than HISB via search engines. HISB via SNS had a positive effect on life satisfaction, while HISB via search engines had a negative impact. Informational support and emotional support had a partially mediating effect on life satisfaction when participants used HISB via SNS. Based on these findings, the theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Experiments are conducted toward 199 subjects with three different warning pictorial images to explore the relations between perception of color image and negative emotional response as warning effects. The results are as follows. First, three color images show significant differences in negative emotional responses. The red is higher in negative response marks than the green. Second, perception of three different color images shows significant impacts on negative emotional responses when attached on the tobacco packaging. Third, personal insensitivity yields negative impacts on the relations between the perception of color and negative emotional responses towards graphic pictorial warnings.

This study investigated the effects of glamorous portrayal of suicide and explaining background of suicide on perception of suicide. The study was a 2 (glamorous portrayal: using vs. not using) x 2 (explaining background: using vs. not using) between-subject factorial design online experiment. In addition, some of participants in this study were interviewed. The findings from an experimental study (N = 120) suggested that distortion and riskiness of suicide were greater in the condition of using glamorous expressions and explaining background of suicide compared to not using those expressions. In addition, participants who watched video included both independent variables had a lower negative perception on suicide. Theoretical implications of framed messages and realistic media contents and guidelines were discussed.