Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Loneliness Assuaged: Eye-Tracking an Audience Watching Barrage Videos
Published on: May 29, 2020
Media use and health information seeking: an empirical test of complementarity theory
1Department of Communication, University of Missouri - St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63121, USA. tiany@umsl.edu
Abstract:
This study compares cancer victims and cancer-free adults' use of communication channels for health information. It tests the complementarity theory (Dutta-Bergman, 2004a, 2004b) with a subsample of the Health Information National Trends Survey data. The complementarity of communication channels for health information use is confirmed on 3 different levels: complementarity among mass media channels, including traditional media and the Internet; complementarity between the interpersonal channel and mass media channels; and complementarity between the interpersonal channel and mass media channels after controlling for illness severity. This study provides strong support for complementarity theory, and extends the complementarity hypothesis into the realm of interpersonal channels of communication. Finally, this investigation suggests cancer victims use the media for health information differently than adults who have not been diagnosed with cancer.
Related Concept Videos
Complementation Tests
Organisms heterozygous for different mutations are crossed pairwise in all combinations. If present on different genes, the mutations can complement each other by providing the missing...
Concepts of Health and Illness
Relationship Formation
Factors Influencing Attraction III: Similarity
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention I
The health belief model (HBM) attempts to predict health-related behavior in specific belief patterns. According to the HBM, a person's...
Methods of Medium Optimization
