Doctors on YouTube: Exploring the Uses and Gratifications of Health Vloggers

EasyChair Preprint 8097

Abstract

Since its launch in 2005 as a venture-funded technology startup, YouTube has grown into the world’s largest online video platform—used by more than 2.2 billion daily active users globally (Statista Research Department, 2021; Ceci, 2021). Among these users, a number of physicians are creating health content. In particular, survey data suggests Egyptian physicians spend significantly more time on social media than those based in other countries (Elkhayat et al., 2018). This heavy use may be linked to Egypt’s unique health communication context; with high levels of social media use but limited access to affordable healthcare, many Egyptians turn to the internet to learn about their health (Ghweeba et al., 2017). While physicians’ use of social media has clear benefits for their audiences (Hassan 2018; Osman 2019), much less is known about what they themselves gain from this use.

Keyphrases: Health, Uses & Gratifications, YouTube, social media, social medium, use youtube, vlogging

@booklet{EasyChair:8097,
  author    = {Noha Atef and Alice Fleerackers and Juan Pablo Alperin},
  title     = {Doctors on YouTube: Exploring the Uses and Gratifications of Health Vloggers},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 8097},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2022}}