Paper by Jean Burgess, Elija Cassidy and Ben Light, presented at #ir15 Association of Internet Researchers conference, Daegu, South Korea, October 2014

1. Deeply Superficial Digital Media Engagement?
The Case of Twitter and Movember 2013
Jean Burgess @jeanburgess
Elija Cassidy
Ben Light @doggyb

2. Digital Media
and Health
Benefits:
• exploit the resources of patients themselves (Hejlesen et al.
2001);
• afford improved accessibility because they are said to be
available 24 hours a day access and offer the pacing of
treatment to suit individuals’ needs and lifestyles (Strecher
2007; Rice et al. 2012);
• offer increased levels of interactivity and therefore, much more
scope for public engagement than with the mass media
(Turner-McGrievy et al. 2009; Ito and Brown 2010).
!
Problems:
• problems associated with such approaches particularly in
terms of the perceived credibility of Internet sources
(Eysenbach 2008)

3. Irrefutable Links Between Engagement, Behaviour Change and
Clinical Outcomes

4. !
!
Prostate cancer is the
most common cancer
diagnosed in Australian
men
!
In 2012, in Australia,
approximately 75% of
people who died by
suicide were men
!
affecting only the outer part or
surface of something: not deep or
serious
!
used to describe a quality,
characteristic, etc., that can be
seen in the outward appearance
or manner of something or
someone but that is not deep or
genuine
Superficiality

5. Keen (2007) The Cult of the Amateur - p.16

6. 2003 - Melbourne: ‘Bring Back the Mo’
2004 - 480 Mobros and Mosistas (PCFA $54,000)
2006 - Official Charity Status in Australia, New
Zealand, Beyond Blue, ($10m)
2007 - US, Canada and UK (73 projects funded)
2008 - Spain and Ireland
2009 - $106M, 630K Mobros and Mosistas
2010 - South Africa, Finland, Czech Republic, the
Netherlands (352 projects funded)
2011 - Belgium, Denmark and Norway
2012 - Austria, France, Germany, Hong Kong,
Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland
2012 - Google Chrome advert
2013 - $580M, >4M Mobros and Mosistas

8. Methods
• In-house installation of
YourTwapperkeeper
• Keyword ‘movember’
• Data collection 01/10-4/12
• 1,313,426 tweets from 759,345
unique users
• Standard ‘hashtag studies’
analytics:
• activity over time
• most visible/active users
• language & location
• themes, URLs etc

9. Activity over time

10. tweets & unique users over time
#movember starts
#movember ends

12. tweet types

13. tweet types over time

14. themes (EN only)

15. most active accounts (tweets)

16. most active accounts (tweet type)

17. most visible account?

19. most visible accounts (in-degree)

20. most visible accounts (activity)

21. top tweets

22. geolocation

23. languages

24. most-tweeted URLs
URL CATEGORY DESCRIPTION
h"ps://vine.co/v/hFQ2iArFHLQ selfie Joe
Jonas
Vine
Video
text:
Support
#Movember
h"ps://twi"er.com/9GAG/status/398088029426163712/photo/
1
meme
pic photo
montage
of
guy
shaving
his
beard,
in
homage
to
a
comic
h"p://instagram.com/p/hCWcNhj8OE/ selfie instagram
strip
thingo
sXthat
ll
of
does
@joejonas
the
same
pre-­‐thing
beard
posted
shavin
bgy
meme
site
h"p://uk.movember.com/mospace/8019173 movember
official
website James
Arthur
page
UK
movember
site
n/a broken n/a
h"ps://twi"er.com/RealMrClean/status/398188267448696832/
promo
Xe-­‐in
promo
cartoon
'selfie'
of
Mr
Clean
photo/1
h"ps://twi"er.com/JVReemer21/status/406140633737203712/
photo/1
promo
Xe-­‐in James
van
Riemsdyk
pic
-­‐
player
trading
card
h"ps://twi"er.com/bluthquotes/status/396505293980307456/
photo/1
promo
Xe-­‐in George
Michael
Bluth
with
a
moustache
-­‐
AD
Xe-­‐in
h"ps://twi"er.com/NHLBruins/status/407249889593393152/
photo/1
promo
Xe-­‐in Boston
Bruins
team
mugshots
with
mos
h"ps://twi"er.com/9GAG/status/398903255692242944/photo/
1
meme
pic Hobbit
Dwarf
cheat
sheet
beards
infographic
posted
by
meme
h"ps://twi"er.com/TheLadBible/status/397113402797330433/ site
9GAG
photo/1
meme
pic Funny
meme
pic
posted
by
ladmag
site
The
Lad
Bible
h"p://ie.movember.com/mospace/8279381 movember
official
website BARTOSZ
BAK
page
at
US
movember
site
h"ps://twi"er.com/TreatRepublic/status/
promo
Xe-­‐in promo
Xe-­‐in
from
@treatrepublic
397651224851677184/photo/1
h"ps://twi"er.com/TheLadBible/status/398074137622495233/
photo/1
meme
pic cute
cat
pic
from
@theladbible
h"ps://twi"er.com/TheHobbitMovie/status/
403670367941570560/photo/1
promo
Xe-­‐in LOTR
promo
Xe-­‐in
using
hobbit
dward
beard
infographic
meme
h"ps://twi"er.com/spinozzi24/status/396643441049735169 meme
pic Kevin
Spinozzi
promises
to
make
it
look
like
he
has
a
moustache
h"ps://www.movember.com/uk/register/ movember
official
website roeng
hisitsr
ahXeoand
pifa
hgee
gaett
ms
5o0v0e
mRTbser
UK
h"ps://twi"er.com/stephenfry/status/396761607348301824/
selfie Stephen
Fry
moustache
selfie
photo/1
h"ps://twi"er.com/TheRealStanLee/status/
403961551788339200/photo/1
selfie Stan
Lee
selfie
h"ps://ca.movember.com/mobile/#profile/6928801 movember
official
website George
Parros
page
at
movember
Canada
h"ps://twi"er.com/GeorgeParros/status/
selfie George
Parros
selfie
395949227022356480/photo/1
n/a broken n/a
h"ps://twi"er.com/HistoricalPics/status/401754082568044544/
photo/1
meme
pic from
@historicalpics
The
greatest
mustache
in
the
world
in
n/a broken 1n9/a77,
157
cm
long
h"p://us.movember.com/mospace/6246461 movember
official
website James
Chofay
page
at
US
movember
site

34. Awareness
Clinical
Outcomes
Grooming and self care

35. Next Steps
• Socioeconomic value
of superficiality in a
context that ‘matters’
• Boring data
• Movember 2014
• Cross platform data