Displaying Fear, Sadness, and Joy in Public: Schizophrenia Vloggers' Video Narration of Emotion and Online Care-Seeking

TL;DR

This study analyzes 401 schizophrenia-related vlogs on YouTube, revealing how vloggers express emotions through narration and visuals, and highlights disparities in audience engagement linked to visual appeal.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of emotional narration and visual framing in schizophrenia vlogs, and uncovers disparities in audience engagement based on visual appeal.

Findings

Vloggers disclose emotions through verbal narration and storytelling.

Different visual framing styles are employed to convey emotional experiences.

Visually appealing videos attract significantly more audience engagement.

Abstract

Individuals with severe mental illnesses (SMI), particularly schizophrenia, experience complex and intense emotions frequently. They increasingly turn to vlogging as an authentic medium for emotional disclosure and online support-seeking. While previous research has primarily focused on text-based disclosure, little is known about how people construct narratives around emotions and emotional experiences through video blogs. Our study analyzed 401 YouTube videos created by schizophrenia vloggers, revealing that vloggers disclosed their fear, sadness, and joy through verbal narration by explicit expressions or storytelling. Visually, they employed various framing styles, including Anonymous, Talk-to-Camera, and In-the-Moment approaches, along with diverse visual narration techniques. Notably, we uncovered a concerning 'visual appeal disparity' in audience engagement, with visually appealing videos receiving significantly more views, likes, and comments. This study discusses the role of video-sharing platforms in emotional expression and offers design implications for fostering online care-seeking for emotionally vulnerable populations.