In this exploratory study we examine the hypothesis that health-promoting politician role-models positively influence an individual’s personal health habits. By examining the Facebook comments of individuals exposed to health-promoting personal accounts of politicians, we examine whether these individuals regard these politicians as role models in the context of health. This is done regardless of how they view these politicians from a political point of view. The importance of this study derives from its intent to examine for the first time, whether there is evidence that individuals are influenced by politicians and their mediated depictions in the context of health. Furthermore, we try to understand whether gender plays a role in this social learning. Results indicate that individuals regard politicians as role models in the context of health. Furthermore, results indicate that women are more likely than men to express their will to imitate health promoting behaviors of both female and male politicians. Thus, this study sheds light for the first time on the phenomenon of politicians’ health-promoting mediated depictions and their importance to an individual’s health.Contents
Introduction
Literature review
Methods
Results
Discussion and conclusions
In an age when social networks have become a major part in people’s lives, many politicians have thought to utilize these platforms for their own political self-promotion. With this in mind, politicians and their teams often share their political ideas as well as the politician’s personal life “behind the scene” glances with their followers. Thus, it is not uncommon for these accounts to portray the politician’s personal habits and behaviors that seemingly have no political purpose. Yet, their large online and off-line following catapults them into prominent celebrities who might serve as role models for their followers to observe and mimic. Accordingly, this study sets out to ascertain whether people consider politicians as role models to imitate in the context of personal health. We chose to focus on politician’s personal health as personal health is regarded as one of the most important issues in society today and can easily be learned through observation. In this study we chose two case studies that represent personal health: quitting cigarette smoking and working out in a gym (physical activity), and examine whether people view these politicians behaviors as worth mimicking, possibly indicating for the first time that politicians serve as role models in the context of health.
Role models are people who lead by example by displaying what is attainable, what is desirable, and how to achieve it (Bandura, 2003; Brace-Govan, 2013; Morgenroth, et al., 2015). For example, a role model can be an expert who demonstrates how to perform a specific task, it can be a famous athlete who individuals wish to mimic his or her achievements, or it can be any person’s lifestyle that an individual wishes to imitate (Brace-Govan, 2013). The emulation of role models derives from the psychological phenomenon of ‘social learning’ which suggests that people learn through observation and imitation (Bandura, 2003). Social learning in general and role models in particular offer the individual the advantage of learning new things without the risk involved in trial and error (Bandura, 2003). Furthermore, it allows individuals to encounter new possibilities that do not exist in their immediate surroundings (Morgenroth, Ryan and Peters, 2015).
Mediated role models are people who appear in the media (e.g., traditional mass media such as television, movies, and newspapers, and well as on social networks such as Facebook and YouTube) and are considered by individuals as role models to learn from and imitate (Bandura, 2003; Gledhill, 1991; Jackson and Vares, 2015; Hesmondhalgh, 2018; Morgenroth, et al., 2015; Shomron and Schejter, 2021, 2020). The mediation of role models can have a greater influence relative to unmediated role models as they can reach more people at once (Bandura, 2003), and expose individuals to possibilities that do not exist in their immediate surroundings (Morgenroth, et al., 2015). Therefore, role models, and specifically mediated role models can play an important role in society, by influencing the perceived opportunities individuals think they have as well as actual opportunities (Jackson and Vares, 2015; Shomron and Schejter, 2021, 2020). Accordingly, it is not surprising that both public and commercial marketing initiatives incorporate role models in their media campaigns. Notably, celebrities are often recruited in effort to promote commercial products such as weight loss plans or anti-smoking programs (Brace-Govan, 2013).
Some of the best-known role models in society are cultural celebrities (e.g., movie stars or musicians), who regularly sway political opinions, lifestyle habits, body image attitudes and consumption choices (Street, 2019). These celebrities tend to foster both negative and positive health-related attitudes and behaviors by encouraging people to partake in physical activities, develop health awareness, or to over-consume sugary drinks and fast food (Hoffman, et al., 2017).
Politicians serve as some of the most influential and prominent celebrities in society, a phenomenon that has intensified with the rise of populism in the political arena (Mishra and Mishra, 2014; Wright, 2019). This rise is also enhanced by the rapid development of new media technologies from smartphones to social media platforms, that enable constant connectivity and activity (Schejter and Tirosh, 2016).
For the most part there are two different paths that lead to becoming a celebrity politician. To be sure an existing celebrity can decide to run for office and become a politician (e.g., Ronald Reagan), or existing current politician can rise to prominence and fame and become a celebrity (Marsh, et al., 2010). Of course, not all celebrities decide to become politicians, and not all politicians rise to prominence and fame and become celebrities.
politicians rise to prominence and fame and become celebrities. Celebrity-politicians tend to promote their own individual brands regardless of policies and party affiliation (Street, 2019). Similarly, they regularly utilize the different media platforms for marketing themselves as commodities. This utilization helps them promote their unique brand, strengthen their celebrity status, and turn them into possible role models (Marcus, 2019). Many celebrity-politicians prefer utilizing social media platforms like Facebook (Edgerly, et al., 2016) so that they can communicate their messages directly to the public without interference from the traditional media (Enli and Skogerbø, 2013). Furthermore, social media platforms allow the development of a more ‘authentic’ and ‘down-to-earth’ persona which in turn contributes to social modeling (García-Rapp and Roc-Cuberes, 2017). To this end politicians tend to take advantage of this possibility by sharing on social media the day-to-day ordinary activities in which they partake (Enli and Skogerbø, 2013). Under these circumstances, individuals can be exposed to a variety of people on social media such as Facebook, especially to well-known people such as celebrity-politicians (Enli and Skogerbø, 2013; Heiss, et al., 2019).
When examining politician’s gender in the media, studies have revealed a disparity between depictions of politicians. On the one hand, women politicians are stereotypically depicted as softer, more vulnerable and weaker (Campus, 2013; Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Kawakawi, et al., 2000). Yet, female politicians try to avoid these typical ‘female’ stereotypes; rather, tend to embrace the image of ‘Iron Woman’ who adopts dominant ‘male’ stereotypes (e.g., stiffness, seriousness and calmness). Likewise, the media regularly links women politicians to ‘female’ topics such as education, welfare and health care, while ignoring their presence in timeworn ‘male’ topics such as security, foreign affairs and economics. Consequently, these stereotypical depictions of women politicians in the media reflect gender biases and power relationship structures that exist between men and women in society. Thus, women are less likely to hold political office relative to men and tend to be under-represented in the media (Lips, 2020; Rheault, et al., 2019). Furthermore, when women politicians do appear in the media, they are more likely to receive literal abuse and criticism (Rheault, et al., 2019). However, while the traditional media underrepresents and misrepresents women politicians relative to men, “social media provide a more equal opportunity platform for female politicians” (Yarchi and Samuel-Azran, 2018) thus possibly enabling more opportunities for women politicians to serve as role models. Therefore, in this study we deemed it beneficial to examine both female and male politicians, to elicit a more comprehensive understanding of the social modeling occurring with politicians.
In this study we focus on Facebook comments in order to examine whether individuals regard politicians as role models in the context of health. Analyzing comments on social media including Facebook is regularly conducted for the purpose of examining public attitudes and opinions (Eeken and Hermes, 2021; Kim, et al., 2018). Certainly, this method has its limitations which we discuss at the end of this article. The advantage we saw in focusing on Facebook relative to other social media platforms was that commenters tend not to be anonymous, thereby allowing for the aggregation of demographic information such as the gender of the commenter. In a similar vein, this lack of anonymity on Facebook could influence the civility of the online discussion (Santana, 2014) leading perhaps to more constructive comments relative to other social media platforms such as YouTube (Eeken and Hermes, 2021). Additionally, Facebook is considered the leading social platform in which citizens can interact with politicians (Kalsnes, et al., 2017) in the public domain, making it an ideal platform for testing our hypotheses. These online discussions and interactions that take place on Facebook allow users to be exposed to different opinions and partake in diverse discourse (Batorski and Grzywińska, 2018; Hayes, et al., 2015; Heiss, et al., 2019). At the same time, we also acknowledge some ethical issues are invariably involved in our study. While Facebook comments are not anonymous and appear in the public domain on a politician’s feed, one could argue that their analysis could be an intrusion of privacy. Therefore, we analyzed the comments in the aggregate, and avoided using any information that could identify an individual user.
In regards to personal health habits, we propose that Facebook in particular and social media in general can serve as health-promoting platforms due to the social learning phenomenon, in addition to the ordinary health promotion messaging used in advertisement tactics on these platforms (Cowdery, et al., 2011). Social learning refers to learning through observation by “link[ing] participants to social networks and community settings that provide natural incentives and continued personalized guidance, for desired change” [1]. Individuals can learn from politicians what health goals are desired and imitate the behaviors that lead to the politician’s achievements [2]. Social media platforms allow the individual a richer exposure to the politician relative to traditional media, encouraging a possible interactive learning experience both cognitive and behavioral, in a socialized context (Anderson, et al., 2020).
Gender has been found to play an important role in the way people communicate and interact on Facebook. For example, women tend to prefer cleaner language, to express more empathy and feelings, and to be less assertive relative to men (Tifferet, 2019; Tifferet and Vilnai-Yavetz, 2014). These differences tend to reflect gender differences outside the screen (Grubbs Hoy and Milne, 2010; Lai, Hsieh and Zhang, 2019; Rambaree and Knez, 2017). Therefore, when examining how people interact with potential role models online, we deem it beneficial to examine whether gender plays an important role in this. Additionally, when examining cases of social learning like in this study, it is beneficial to take into account the ‘commonality effect’. According to this psychological effect, social learning is more successful when both the model and the individuals that are exposed to the model share common characteristics such as gender and nationality (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2011; Gómez, et al., 2013). This psychological effect points to the importance of a person’s identity when choosing who to engage with and learn from. When an individual identifies a person as part of his or her group, they are more prone to consider them as legitimate sources of learning. This results from the similarities the individual identifies between themselves and the model, that would suggest that following in the model’s steps would lead to a similar experience and result (Gómez, et al., 2013).
Furthermore, it has been suggested that these models also need to express what their followers would consider ‘positive’ behaviors in regard to the social context of their modeling for them to be considered worthy of imitation:
Female role models in particular are emulated and admired not only for their work skills, but also for the gendered behaviors they exhibit. For instance, female role models in science who embody the discipline’s gender stereotypes are unlikely to influence women’s beliefs about success [3]. Thus, we deem it beneficial to examine whether the gender of the person posting comments on social media networks and the gender of the politicians play a role in this phenomenon of health-related social learning.
Abdulaev and Shomron (2020) point to three types of role models that depicted politicians in the media regarding health: a ‘health-promoting model’ in which the politician’s depiction of his personal habits in the context of health are positive, a ‘hybrid model’ in which the politicians depiction of his personal habits in the context of health include both positive and negative health habits, and a ‘model of non-existence’ in which the politician’s media depictions do not include references to his personal habits in the context of health. The categories used to determine the context of health include: positive nutritional habits; receiving medical treatment or physical examinations; participating in physical workouts and sport activities; avoiding unhealthy habits such as smoking or excessive alcohol drinking; and participating in activities promoting good mental health such as spending time in nature (Abdulaev and Shomron, 2020).
Consequently, our focus in this study on smoking cigarettes falls into the category of “unhealthy habits” since there is a scientific consensus that smoking cigarettes is harmful to people’s health (Geva-Hespel, 2018; Knudsen, 2017; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2014; West, 2017). Over the years, various studies from diverse disciplines discuss the negative effects cigarettes have on health. Smoking is considered one of the most dangerous addictions impairing human health and leading to severe illnesses including premature deaths (Geva-Hespel, 2018; Knudsen, 2017; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2014; West, 2017). Over the years, addiction rehabilitation centers have been developed for dangerous substances including smoking, however most change seems to come from each person’s conscientious choices (Knudsen, 2017; West, 2017). Being that our first case study in this paper examines social learning of an Israeli politician quitting his cigarette habit, we wish to add context regarding smoking in Israel. Although the Israeli health ministry is ‘at war’ with smoking through legislation, fines, curbing cigarette marketing and financing rehabilitation programs, over 21 percent of Israeli adults regularly smoked in 2017 (Geva-Hespel, 2018). Comparatively, Israel’s smoking levels in 2017 ranked only 18 out of the 32 OECD countries (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2019). Therefore, though smoking levels in Israel are not especially higher relative to similar countries, they are still prevalent and an issue worth examination.
Our second case study in this paper examines social learning of an American politician working out in the gym, and we likewise wish to add context regarding physical activities in general and specifically in the United States. Working out in the gym falls into the category of ‘participating in physical workouts and sport activities,’ as there is a scientific consensus that working out is beneficial to people’s health (Murphy, et al., 2019; Piercy, et al., 2018). The most recent edition of “Physical activity guidelines for Americans”, published by the American Medical Association in 2018, states that: “Being physically active is one of the most important actions that people of all ages can take to improve their health” [4]. Benefits include a large variety of positive physical outcomes including cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, metabolic benefits and overall health (Ortega, et al., 2018). However, though the benefits of exercise are known and supported by an abundance of scientific evidence, only one in three adults in the U.S. exercise the recommended weekly amount (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). This lack of exercise is mostly attributed to indifference, and therefore the impetus of an individual’s motivation could prove highly beneficial to an individual’s overall health (Teixeira, et al., 2012). We hypothesized in this study that politicians could serve as an important source of motivation through the phenomenon of mediated social learning, as they could serve as role models through their personal health-related habits.
Even though the health-related depictions of celebrity politicians in the media have been studied (Abdulaev and Shomron, 2020), to date there has not been an examination as to whether they affect individuals or are regarded by individuals as role models from whom to learn. To fill this gap, we ask:
RQ1: Do individuals regard celebrity politicians as role models in the context of health-related personal habits?
RQ2: Do males and females differ in this matter?
H1: Individuals will express their desire to imitate celebrity-politician’s personal health-related habits. This is expected as a result of the social learning psychological phenomenon (Bandura, 2003; Morgenroth, et al., 2015).
H2: More males will express their desire to imitate a male politician (Benny Gantz) relative to females. This as a result of there being fewer female smokers in the Israeli society relative to male smokers (Geva-Hespel, 2018). Furthermore, it is expected that women will express less of a desire to imitate a male role model (Lockwood, 2006). This is expected as a result the commonality effect (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2011; Gómez, et al., 2013).
H3: More females will express their desire to imitate a female politician (Tulsi Gabbard) relative to males. This is expected as a result of the commonality effect (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2011; Gómez, et al., 2013; Lockwood, 2006).
To answer these questions, we conducted a quantitative content analysis (Wang, 2011) on two case studies of two leading politicians from different countries (Israel and the U.S.). We chose two different countries in order to allow more generalization from our findings. Each of the politicians selected recently rose to national recognition and fame, suggesting that most people that would encounter their content on Facebook, would have been exposed to it for the first time, and not have known about it from other sources. Thus, if one of the politicians shared a personal health-related story on Facebook, it would be logical to assume that most people would be encountering it for the first time. However, it should be noted that this is a field study and not an experiment, and thus we do not have control over the controlling factors. The first politician was Benny Gantz, an Israeli male politician and leader of the center-left “Blue and White” party, the largest political party in the Israeli parliament. The second politician was Tulsi Gabbard, a female American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Hawaii’s second congressional district and one of the democratic presidential nominees in the 2020 race. Both of these politicians have only recently risen to national fame.
In these case studies we analyzed the Facebook comments that appeared on the two national politicians Facebook pages in which they share diverse content including their health-promoting personal habits (Israeli Benny Gantz and American Tulsi Gabbard).
The first case study included 400 Facebook comments that appeared on Benny Gantz’s Facebook page, in response to his post (from 23 December 2019) about quitting smoking cigarettes (https://www.facebook.com/BeGantz/posts/449774735699924?__tn__=-R). The sample consisted of all comments that appeared in the first 24 hours of his post, excluding 335 private comments that were not open to the public (the total amount of comments comprised of 735). We limited the comments to 24 hours, as most comments were written in that time frame, and we wished to grasp individuals first reaction before they heard about it from other sources (such as traditional media political commentators). It should be noted that both the politician’s post, and the comments were written in Hebrew.
The second case study included 152 Facebook comments that appeared on Tulsi Gabbard’s Facebook page, in response to her post (from 16 September 2019) which included a video of her working out in the gym (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=697781047390255). The sample consisted of all comments that appeared in response to the post, excluding 1,113 private comments that were not open to the public (the total amount of comments comprised 1,265). It should be noted that both the politician’s post, and the comments were all written in English.
The comments from both politicians were coded by the authors and statistically analyzed. It should also be noted that comments on these Facebook pages were not moderated by the page operators, thus, contributing to a more authentic representation of attitudes and opinions (we reached this conclusion by noticing the amount of extremely negative content in some of the audience comments). The analysis included two variables:
- Gender of the commenter — determined by his or her profile picture, and the grammatical gender language he or she used in their comment (in Hebrew, all nouns are male or female). When in doubt, we verified through the commenter’s information on their personal Facebook accounts.
- The comment’s reaction sentiment — this comprised of four options: (1) expressing the will to mimic the politician’s behavior of quitting smoking\working out, (2) ex-smokers who empathized with the politician or individuals who had already worked out and empathized with the politician, (3) support to the general idea of quitting smoking\working out, (4) other, unknown, and unrelated political messaging.
Though both case studies include different variables that might have different modeling behaviors, we deem them appropriate for this study, as they both represent personal health-related habits and could therefore serve in a self-modeling capacity that could motivate imitation.
An intercoder reliability test using Kappa statistics was conducted between the two authors of this article to ensure data reliability. The test included 10 percent of the items as customary, for a 95 percent probability level, and a K>85 percent assumed agreement level (Wang, 2011).
Results indicate that a portion of individuals expressed a desire to mimic both politicians (Benny Gantz and Tulsi Gabbard) in the context of health. This might point to them possibly considering the politicians as role models in the context of health. Of the 400 Facebook comments analyzed in the first case study, 49 comments included a direct expression of the will to mimic Benny Gantz quitting cigarettes. This comprised 12.25 percent of the comments (see Figure 1), thus confirming the first hypothesis.
Figure 1: Benny Gantz quitting smoking and comment sentiments.
Of the 152 Facebook comments analyzed in the second case study, 16 comments included a direct expression of the will to mimic Tulsi Gabbard working out. This comprised 10.52 percent of the comments (see Figure 2), also confirming the first hypothesis.
Figure 2: Tulsi Gabbard exercise sentiments.
Our second hypothesis was disproved in the first case study with Benny Gantz as female commenters were significantly more likely than males to express their will to mimic male politician Benny Gantz quitting cigarettes (19.3 percent females vs. 8.7 percent males, X2(df=3)=25.00, P<.000).
Our third hypothesis was confirmed in the second case study with Tulsi Gabbard as females were significantly more likely than males to express their will to mimic female politician Tulsi Gabbard working out (27.3 percent females vs. 7.7 percent males, X2(df=3)=7.924, P<.048).
In this exploratory study we set out to determine whether celebrity politicians serve as role models to individuals in the context of health. Results indicate that some individuals do in fact express their desire to imitate the politician’s personal health habits, possibly an indication that they consider politicians as role models in the context of health. This then confirms the first hypothesis. This finding further contributes to the body of knowledge regarding the important role the media can serve in society benefiting an individuals health (Cowdery, et al., 2011). Though this study is not representative of the phenomenon of mediated social modeling, and in particular the connection between politicians and health, we deem this study essential, as it provides primary evidence that such social modeling is taking place between politicians and individuals in the context of health.
Of equal importance, in regard to social learning along gender lines, we received mixed results. While our findings indicate that more females expressed their will to mimic a male politician relative to the males (contrary to H2) our findings indicate that more females expressed their will to mimic a female politician relative to the males (confirming H3). Thus, no matter the gender of the role model, our findings indicate that women were more likely than men to express their desire to imitate a role model. This could suggest that there might be instances in which the effects of social modeling do not align according to gender lines. This result might be explained by the commonality effect (Gaertner and Dovidio, 2011; Gómez, et al., 2013; Lockwood, 2006) which suggest that some individuals consider politicians part of their group or not part of their group by variables that do not always include gender. For example, we hypothesize that a woman might consider a male politician part of their group, and thus worth learning from, if the politician holds the same political views. Additionally, this could suggest that women, relative to men, are more prone to following role models, or following role models in the context of health, or perhaps just differ in their motivation to express online their desire to follow role models. Given this we suggest further research explore these circumstances and reasons, particularly by asking users themselves.
There are a few research limitations we wish to note. First, we must distinguish between the individual’s expression on Facebook of their desire to mimic the politician’s behavior, and the actual unknown behavior of these individuals in real life. Yet, according to the theory of planned behavior (TPB), intention is an important indication to the probability of adopting a behavior (Newham, et al., 2016). Accordingly, this intention can be seen in the Facebook comments of those expressing their will to mimic the politician’s personal health habits. Second, even if these individuals are influenced by the politician as our data suggest, we cannot determine from this data whether this is a lasting effect or a passing one. Additionally, as the commenters accounts cannot be verified, some of the comments might not represent actual people or could be paid-for activists.
However, for the first time, this study provides support to the supposition that politicians could serve as mediated role models in the context of health to individuals in society. This conclusion points to the important role the media can serve in society through social learning, and its possible impact in particular to an individual’s health.
About the authors
Dr. Baruch Shomron is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Communication at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. His research focuses on communication rights, media capabilities, media representations, the digital divide and health communication, especially regarding marginalized populations.
Send comments to: bshomron [at] uni-mainz [dot] deDr. Narmina Abdulaev is a lecturer at the Department of Communication Studies and Department of Hotel & Tourism Management at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a research fellow at the Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Haifa, Israel. Her research focuses on celebrities, influencers, tourism, fandom and folklore in the media.
E-mail: narmina [at] post [dot] bgu [dot] ac [dot] il
Notes
1. Bandura, 2001, p. 265.
2. Ibid.
3. Adamson and Kelan, 2019, p. 983.
4. Piercy, et al., 2018, p. 6.
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Editorial history
Received 7 January 2020; revised 21 April 2020; accepted 5 April 2022.
This paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Celebrity-politicians as health promoting role models: A case study of cigarettes and gym workouts on Facebook
by Baruch Shomron and Narmina Abdulaev.
First Monday, Volume 27, Number 6 - 6 June 2022
https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/10433/10660
doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v27i6.10433
