The Influence of Social Media on the Perception of Autism Spectrum Disorders: Content Analysis of Public Discourse on YouTube Videos.

Researchers looked at how autism is shown in YouTube videos and what people say about them. They found that while many videos try to educate people about autism, there are still harmful stereotypes. Some content wrongly suggests autistic people can't understand emotions or that autism always looks the same. However, YouTube can be a good way to help people learn about autism and build understanding in the community.

This content analysis examined how autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is portrayed on YouTube and how the public responds. Researchers analyzed 50 YouTube videos from 2019 and 9 videos from 2022, along with 680 total comments. The dominant theme was providing educational information about ASD characteristics, with most content showing mixed sentiment rather than purely positive or negative views. The analysis revealed concerning stigmatization patterns, including portrayal of autistic individuals as unable to understand emotions and autism being presented as a monolithic condition only in its most severe forms.

Despite these issues, YouTube was identified as having potential to raise awareness and foster public empathy about autism's varied presentations.

Results suggest need for improved autism representation in social media to combat persistent stereotypes. Healthcare professionals should be aware of how social media influences public perceptions and consider addressing misconceptions with families and communities.

Small sample sizes (50 and 9 videos respectively), limited to YouTube platform only, subjective content analysis approach, and unclear methodology for video and comment selection beyond basic eligibility criteria.

Little is known about how social media shapes the public's perception of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We used a media content analysis approach to analyze the public's perception of ASD. We conducted a YouTube search in 2019 using keywords related to ASD. The first 10 videos displayed after each search that met the eligibility criteria were selected for analysis.

The final sample size of videos analyzed was 50. The top 10 comments from each respective video were selected for commentary analysis. A total of 500 comments were used for this study. Videos and comments were categorized based on sentiment, evident themes, and subthemes.

In 2022, using the same key words, we conducted a subsequent YouTube search using the same criteria, except that the videos had to be 10 min or less, whereby nine videos were selected out of 70 for commentary analysis, and a total of 180 comments were used. The dominant themes were "providing educational information on ASD characteristics" with the main subtheme being "no specific age or sex focus". The most common category of comments was "anecdote". The overwhelming sentiments of both the videos and comments were "mixed".

Individuals with ASD were stigmatized as not being able to understand emotion. Furthermore, ASD was also stigmatized as being a monolithic condition only manifesting itself in the most severe form when autism varies in severity. YouTube is a powerful tool that allows people and organizations to raise awareness about ASD by providing a more dynamic view on autism and fostering an environment for public empathy and support.