This study explores the relationship between perceived bridging social capital and specific Facebook-enabled communication behaviors using survey data from a sample of U.S. adults (N=614). We explore the role of a specific set of Facebook behaviors that support relationship maintenance and assess the extent to which demographic variables, time on site, total and “actual” Facebook Friends, and t...

Emergency response organizations such as the police are using social media as an additional channel to communicate with the general public in times of crisis. However, the utilization of social media with a free-style communication protocol by emergency response authorities for crisis response is still insufficiently understood. Who are the people they communicate with? What types of crisis-rel...

BACKGROUND A number of studies have examined the influence of self-efficacy, social support and patient-provider communication (PPC) on self-care and glycemic control. Relatively few studies have tested the pathways through which these constructs operate to improve glycemic control, however. We used structural equation modeling to examine a conceptual model that hypothesizes how self-efficacy, ...

Child care centers are a unique context for studying communication about the social and personal expectations about health behaviors. The theory of normative social behavior (TNSB; Rimal & Real, 2005 ) provides a framework for testing the role of social and psychological influences on handwashing behaviors among child care workers. A cross-sectional survey of child care workers in 21 centers in...

Non-verbal communication incorporating visual, audio, and contextual information is important to make sense of and navigate the social world. Individuals who have trouble with social situations often have difficulty recognizing these sorts of non-verbal social signals. In this article, we propose a training tool NOCOA+ (Non-verbal COmmuniation for Autism plus) that uses utterances in visual and...

This paper characterizes the need for a theory that links context to information through the behaviors rooted in cultural identity and social awareness. Based on hypermedia objects and four methods of social communication, I develop a framework for a theory of social linking. This theory assumes that social interaction is the plinth from which we communicate and argues that studies in human com...

Unhealthy behaviors increase individual health risks and are a socioeconomic burden. Harnessing social influence is perceived as fundamental for interventions to influence health-related behaviors. However, the mechanisms through which social influence occurs are poorly understood. Online social networks provide the opportunity to understand these mechanisms as they digitally archive communicat...

This article explores dynamics of pain communication in the social media platform Tumblr. As a device of health communication, the Tumblr platform brings together a network of behaviors, technologies, and media forms through which pain experience is reimaged through and against mainstream biomedical frameworks. The article develops an interpretative approach to analyze how, as social media plat...