A Cluster Analysis of College Students’ Health Information Acquisition Channel: Active Seeking and Accidental Exposure

Abstract: With increasing attention to individual health status and diversified new media portfolio, more and more Chinese people have begun to use new media applications to acquire health information. This study refines the categorization of new media channels in the domain of health information seeking on basis of the type of new media applications and active/passive learning. Using a college student sample, this study surveyed their health information seeking behaviors, and used cluster analysis to classify the sample into four groups- active searching, passive learning, all-social media and all-new media.

Keywords: health communication, passive learning, cluster analysis WeChat, channel

ZHANG Di, Assistant Professor at RUC, Member of NCSRC