Talking about sunbed tanning in online discussion forums: Assertions and arguments

Area of Science:

• Health Psychology
• Sociology of Health
• Digital Communication

Background:

• Growing evidence highlights health and appearance risks of sunbed use.
• The sunbed industry promotes perceived benefits, associating tanned skin with attractiveness and health.
• Sociocultural norms in Western cultures often link tanned skin to positive attributes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore how sunbed users navigate and manage the tensions between health risks and perceived benefits in online discussions.
• To investigate the discursive and rhetorical strategies employed by sunbed users in online forums.

Main Methods:

• Thematic analysis of 556 posts from 13 sunbed-related threads across six UK online forums.
• Discourse analysis techniques were applied to examine the construction and debate of social representations.
• The study was informed by social representations theory and discursive-rhetorical psychology.

Main Results:

• Sunbed users utilize diverse representations and rhetorical strategies to distance themselves from negative information and health concerns.
• Online discussions reveal users actively constructing and debating social representations of sunbed use.
• A range of discursive tactics are employed to manage the perceived risks and benefits.

Conclusions:

• Findings underscore the need for public health campaigns to acknowledge and address the argumentative orientation and negativity present in users' online responses.
• Interventions should consider the complex social representations and rhetorical defenses employed by sunbed users.
• Understanding these user-driven narratives is vital for developing effective sunbed use reduction strategies.