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Social media and digital technology use among Indigenous young people in Australia: a literature review

Overview of attention for article published in International Journal for Equity in Health, May 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (91st percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (80th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
1 news outlet
policy
2 policy sources
twitter
9 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
210 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
478 Mendeley
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Title
Social media and digital technology use among Indigenous young people in Australia: a literature review
Published in
International Journal for Equity in Health, May 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12939-016-0366-0
Pubmed ID
Authors

Emma S. Rice, Emma Haynes, Paul Royce, Sandra C. Thompson

Abstract

The use of social media and digital technologies has grown rapidly in Australia and around the world, including among Indigenous young people who face social disadvantage. Given the potential to use social media for communication, providing information and as part of creating and responding to social change, this paper explores published literature to understand how Indigenous Australian youth use digital technologies and social media, and its positive and negative impacts. Online literature searches were conducted in three databases: PubMed, Google Scholar and Informit in August 2014; with further searches of additional relevant databases (Engineering Village; Communication & mass media complete; Computers & applied sciences complete; Web of Science) undertaken in May 2015. In addition, relevant literature was gathered using citation snowballing so that additional peer-reviewed and grey literature was included. Articles were deemed relevant if they discussed social media and/or digital technologies and Indigenous Australians. After reading and reviewing all relevant articles, a thematic analysis was used to identify overall themes and identify specific examples. A total of 22 papers were included in the review. Several major themes were identified about how and why Indigenous young people use social media: identity, power and control, cultural compatibility and community and family connections. Examples of marketing for health and health promotion approaches that utilize social media and digital technologies were identified. Negative uses of social media such as cyber bullying, cyber racism and the exchange of sexually explicit content between minors are common with limited approaches to dealing with this at the community level. Strong cultural identity and community and family connections, which can be enhanced through social media, are linked to improved educational and health outcomes. The confidence that Indigenous young people demonstrate when approaching the use of social media invites its further use, including in arenas where this group may not usually participate, such as in research. Future research could examine ways to minimise the misuse of social media while maximising its positive potential in the lives of Indigenous young people. Future research should also focus on the positive application of social media and showing evidence in health promotion interventions in order to reduce health inequities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 9 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 478 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Colombia 1 <1%
South Africa 1 <1%
Unknown 476 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 74 15%
Student > Ph. D. Student 61 13%
Student > Bachelor 52 11%
Researcher 33 7%
Lecturer 33 7%
Other 71 15%
Unknown 154 32%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 80 17%
Nursing and Health Professions 38 8%
Medicine and Dentistry 31 6%
Psychology 31 6%
Computer Science 27 6%
Other 107 22%
Unknown 164 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 21. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 April 2020.
All research outputs
#1,672,062
of 24,744,050 outputs
Outputs from International Journal for Equity in Health
#243
of 2,146 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#29,874
of 342,541 outputs
Outputs of similar age from International Journal for Equity in Health
#8
of 36 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,744,050 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,146 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 342,541 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 36 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its contemporaries.