“Wrap your willy”: A text-mining analysis of college students’ shared & received memorable messages of condom use

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Lindstadt, C., Wilcox, G. (May 2020), ‘Wrap your willy’: A text-mining analysis of shared vs. received memorable messages of condom-use. Presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Gold Coast, Australia

Abstract: This work uses a combination of textual-analysis software and manual review to explore and compare young adults’ shared and received memorable messages (SRMMs) of condom use. Results indicated students were equally confident recalling shared- and received-messages. For source/recipient characteristics, shared-messages were overwhelmingly shared with friends while received-messages came equally from the media and individuals. For shared-messages, although male participants indicated they were about as likely to share with either gender, females significantly shared with other women. For received-messages, there was no relationship for sender/recipient gender. Channels for media-based messages primarily included advertising, social media, and television; messages from/to individuals were primarily received/delivered face-to-face. Topics for shared-messages included rich, sometimes misinformed cautionary narratives, while received-messages tended to be briefer, safety-oriented directives. Future analyses will involve in-depth open-coding of SRMMs to assess their relationship with condom-use behavioral variables.