Published in

SAGE Publications, Health Education & Behavior, 2_suppl(46), p. 59S-68S, 2019

DOI: 10.1177/1090198119863770

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Topic Clustering of E-Cigarette Submissions Among Reddit Communities: A Network Perspective

Journal article published in 2019 by Joshua O. Barker ORCID, Jacob A. Rohde ORCID
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Abstract

E-cigarette use in the United States has significantly grown in recent years. Widespread diffusion of e-cigarette content across social media communities may be contributing to this growth. In this study, we (1) explored topics related to e-cigarettes and vaping on Reddit and (2) examined the extent to which these topics clustered across distinct communities. We analyzed a total of N = 79,783 Reddit submissions posted between March 2017 and February 2018 that mentioned at least one e-cigarette or vaping keyword. We created a dictionary to classify submissions into seven different topics related to e-cigarettes and vaping. Submissions were also categorized into one of six mutually exclusive communities identified using subreddit meta-data. Our results indicate that e-cigarette and vaping content on Reddit is primarily about the buying and selling of e-cigarette products. Other common topics included how to build vaping devices, e-juice, and e-cigarette advice. Network correlation analyses found that the distribution of our seven identified topics varied significantly among general e-cigarette, drugs, and research/news subreddit communities. Findings from this study add to a growing literature investigating e-cigarettes and vaping on social media and also contribute to network-level theories by linking communities on Reddit to the diffusion of various depictions of e-cigarettes and vaping.