Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Jun 17, 2022
Date Accepted: Dec 25, 2022
Online Conversations Regarding Fathers Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Research on new and expecting parents largely focuses on the mother, leaving a gap in knowledge about fathers.
Objective:
To understand the online conversation regarding new and expecting fathers on social media, and to explore whether the COVID-19 pandemic changed the online conversation.
Methods:
A social media analysis was conducted. Brandwatch captured social mentions related to new and expecting fathers between February 1, 2019-February 12, 2021. Two time periods were studied: one year before and one year during the pandemic. SAS Text Miner analyzed the data and produced nine topics in the first time period and ten topics in the second time period. The nineteen topics were organized into broader themes.
Results:
Half the topics during each time period were the same, showing consistency in conversation. Six themes were created: Fatherhood Thoughts, Fatherhood Celebrations, Advice Seeking, Fatherhood Announcements, External Parties Targeting Fathers, Miscellaneous.
Conclusions:
Fathers use social media to make announcements, celebrate fatherhood, seek advice, and interact with other fathers. Other accounts utilized social media to advertise baby products and promote baby-related articles to fathers. The findings provide insight and guidance on strategies for public health professionals to better connect with new and expecting fathers online.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.