Visual Cancer Communication on Social Media: An Examination of Content and Effects of #Melanomasucks

Instagram is increasingly becoming a platform on which visual communication of cancer takes place, but few studies have investigated the content and effects. In particular, a paucity of research has evaluated the effects of visual communication of cancer on participative engagement outcomes. The objective of our study was to investigate cancer-related beliefs and emotions shared on Instagram and to examine their effects on participative engagement outcomes including likes, comments, and social support. This study analyzed the content of 441 posts of #melanomasucks on Instagram and assessed the effects of the content characteristics on outcomes, including the number of likes and comments and types of social support using group least absolute shrinkage and selection operator logistic regression. Posts about controlling melanoma were most frequent (271/441, 61.5%), followed by 240 (54.4%) posts about outcomes of having melanoma. Ninety posts (20.4%) were about the causes of melanoma. A greater number of posts expressed positive (159/441, 36.1%) than negative emotions (100/441, 22.7%). Eighty posts (18.1%) expressed hope, making it the most frequently expressed emotion; 49 posts expressed fear (11.1%), 46 were humorous (10.4%), and 46 showed sadness (10.4%). Posts about self behavior as a cause of melanoma decreased likes (P