| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this study was to investigate agenda-setting activity relevant to maternal mortality by using social media data. The study ultimately sought to determine what subset(s) of social media users dominate conversations of maternal mortality online, and did so by interrogating (1) who discusses maternal mortality online and (2) what narratives of maternal mortality are present among their conversations. To address my research objectives, I utilized the marketing software Brandwatch to amass a database of relevant tweets authored within the past two years, using key phrases and hashtags to isolate data relevant to the American maternal mortality crisis. In my analysis, I engaged several Brandwatch functions, including demographic comparison tools, world cloud analyses, and topic wheels, as well as my own line-by-line content analysis of some of the most popular tweets. Between December 2019 and January 2021, I found approximately 34,000 relevant tweets, among which “women,” “rate,” “health,” and “healthcare” were the most-used words. Ultimately, my findings indicate that a particular narrative’s popularity was significantly associated with the professional affiliations of frequent and/or influential posters. They also indicate that maternal mortality is often framed as being one of several “measuring stick” issues meant to denote a certain set of political, or even moral, beliefs and/or affiliations. This research has implications not only for politicians who may wish to communicate about health issues with their constituents using social media platforms, but also for any organizations, activists, advocates, or unaffiliated individuals who wish to influence health-related discussions online. | en_US |
