News

The 72nd Annual Conferences of the International Communication Association (ICA 2022), One World, One Network‽ to be held on 26-30 May 2022 in Paris, France.

We have multiple papers and a panel proposal accepted by ICA 2022! They are:

• From viral to virus: Content analysis of HIV-related Twitter messages among young men

  Authors: Jacqueline Bannon; Natalia Roszkowska; Essence Wilson; Yunwen Wang; Stephen Bonett; Elizabeth Lazarus; Nadia Dowshen; Robin Stevens

• A seat at the table: Deploying youth participatory action research methods in health communication praxis.
  Authors: Essence Wilson; Sydney Lodge; Imani Richburg; Robin Stevens.

• Persaud, C.J. (2022, May). Presenter/panel co-organizer. Figuring “diversity” in sexual content creation. "Problematizing diversity and visibility for queer and trans content creators" panel.

Ongoing Projects

Health Media Summer Camp

In the summer of 2021, USC Health Equity & Media Lab will host a 5-week virtual camp, with health media scholars who identify as high school students in Los Angeles, CA. Scholars collaboratively created media messages about sports/energy drinks and the intention to use sports/energy drinks. The camp sought to design theory-based youth-input messages tailored to youths. Research assistants from our lab, as well as professors, supervised the camp.

#sexmessages: Social media, sexual risk, & substance use behaviors among African American and Latino youth.

The primary goal of the proposed research is to examine and characterize the “digital media neighborhood”, which we conceptualize as the social media environment in which youth learn and communicate about sex and substance use. Since this is a relatively new area of focus, there is a paucity of research. Thus, it is necessary to operationalize the concept of a “digital media neighborhood,” and assess its relationship with sexual risk behaviors among social media users. The term “digital media neighborhood” represents the online community that youth create and are exposed to through their social media platforms.

Associated Publications

• Association Between HIV-Related Tweets and HIV Incidence in the United States: Infodemiology Study

  Stevens, R., Bonett, S., Bannon, J., Chittamuru, D., Slaff, B., Browne, S.K., Huang, S., Bauermeister, J.A. (Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2020).

• You Set Me Up: Gendered Perceptions of Twitter Communication Among Black Youth in Chicago

  Patton, D. U., Stevens, R., Smith Lee, J. R., Eya, G. C., Frey, W. (Social Media and Society, 2020).

• Exploring Substance Use Tweets of Youth in the United States: Mixed Methods Study

  Stevens, R.C., Brawner, B.M., Kranzler, E., Giorgi, S., Lazarus, E., Abera, M., Huang, S., Ungar, L. (Journal of Medical Internet Research: Public Health Surveillance, 2020).

• #digital hood: Engagement with risk content on social media among Black and Hispanic youth

  Stevens, R., Bleakley, A., Hennessy, M., Dunaev, J., Gilliard-Matthews, S. (Journal of Urban Health, 2019).

• Social media use and sexual risk reduction behavior among minority youth: Seeking safe sex information

  Stevens, R., Gilliard-Matthews, S., Dunaev, J., Todhunter-Reid, A., Brawner, B., Stewart, J. (Nursing Research, 2017).

• Risky trade: Individual and neighborhood-level socio-demographics associated with transactional sex among urban African American MSM

  Stevens, R., Icard, L., Jemmott, J. B., O’leary, A., Rutledge, S., Hsu, J., Stephens-Shields, A. (Journal of Urban Health, 2017).

• Social media in the sexual lives of African American and Latino youth: Challenges and opportunities

  Stevens, R., Dunaev, J., Malven, E., Bleakley, A., Hull, S. (Media & Communication, 2016).

• The digital hood: Social media use among youth in disadvantaged neighborhoods

  Stevens, R., Gilliard-Matthews, S., Dunaev, J., Woods, M., Brawner, B. (New Media & Society, 2016).

• AIDS in black and white: the influence of newspaper coverage of HIV/AIDS on HIV/AIDS testing among African Americans and White Americans, 1993-2007
  Stevens, R., Hornik, R. (Journal of Health Communication, 2014)

• The Color of AIDS: An Analysis of newspaper coverage of HIV/AIDS in the United States from 1992–2007
  Stevens, R., Hull, S. (Critical Arts, 2013)

Previous Projects

Social Media and Risk Behavior in Youth

This line of research seeks to leverage the power of Big Data to plan targeted interventions for high-risk youth. Our lab analyzes identifies, classifies, and analyzes risky content in social media posts and investigates the associations between those posts and how youth behave offline. 

Virus2Viral: Identifying key characteristics for HIV prevention using social media.

Social media are a dominant force in the lives of young men, with racial/ethnic and sexual/gender minority
adolescents and young adults indicating that it is one of their primary sources of information, including
information about HIV prevention. At present, little is known about how to best leverage social media to
promote the pillars of the HIV prevention continuum (testing, condoms, and PrEP). We will use a Reasoned
Action Approach (RAA) to elucidate how users discuss HIV prevention behaviors (i.e., PrEP, HIV testing,
condom use) through social media.

Social Change and Depression of Social Media

Integrating insights from our lab's prior social media research, the social context of contemporary race relations & media coverage, and the well-researched positive relationship between depression and risky behavior, this project aims to triangulate social media language that refers to drug use/abuse and uses depressive language.