Self-narrating cancer on social media: Examining the relationships among narrative components, emotional expressions, and social support reception

Objective With the rise of social media, self-narration has become a critical way for people living with cancer to share their experiences and emotions through video blogs. This study examines four major narrative components of cancer vlogs to explore whether different narrative components are associated with emotions (positive, negative, or problem) and whether these components and social support requests influence the types of social support provision in comments. Methods This study employs quantitative content analysis. We conducted stratified random sampling on bilibili, selecting 131 eligible videos and all 12,427 affiliated comments as samples for this study. Results The results indicate that self-experience sharing is less prevalent in vlogs with positive emotions. Specifically, discomfort and new normal are more prevalent in vlogs with negative and problematic emotions than in those with positive emotions. Problem facing is more prevalent in vlogs with negative emotions than in those with positive and problematic emotions. Regarding social support exchanges, vlogs with the discomfort narrative component received less instrumental and emotional support, while vlogs with suggestion offering received more informational support. Moreover, this study finds non-optimal matching in social support request-provision. Although requesting instrumental support in vlogs evoked more instrumental support in comments, requesting emotional or informational support did not elicit corresponding support, and informational support requests even reduced emotional and instrumental provisions. Conclusions The results showed the relationship between the narrative components and emotional expressions of cancer vlogs and revealed the matching status of social support requests and provision in non-health-themed cancer online communities.