Public Reaction to the Death of Steve Jobs: Implications for Cancer Communication

The present study aimed to examine the public reaction to the death of Steve Jobs, focusing on general and cancer-specific information seeking and interpersonal communication. Shortly after Jobs's death, employees from a large university in the Southeastern United States (N = 1,398) completed a web-based survey. Every employee had heard about Steve Jobs's death, and 97% correctly identified pancreatic cancer as the cause of his death. General (50%) and pancreatic cancer–specific (7%) information seeking, as well as general (74%) and pancreatic cancer–specific (17%) interpersonal communication, took place in response to Steve Jobs's death. In multivariate logistic regression analyses controlling for demographics and several cancer-oriented variables, both identification with Steve Jobs and cancer worry in response to Steve Jobs's death significantly (p < .05) predicted pancreatic cancer information seeking as well as interpersonal communication about pancreatic cancer. Additional analyses revealed that cancer worry partially mediated the effects of identification on these outcome variables. Implications of these results for future research as well as cancer prevention and communication efforts are discussed.

[1]  W. Venet,et al.  Effects of news events on response to a breast cancer screening program. , 1978, Public health reports.

[2]  J. Goodwin,et al.  Effect of Nancy Reagan's mastectomy on choice of surgery for breast cancer by US women. , 1998, JAMA.

[3]  D. Mackinnon,et al.  Estimating Mediated Effects in Prevention Studies , 1993 .

[4]  K. Viswanath,et al.  The communications revolution and cancer control , 2005, Nature Reviews Cancer.

[5]  M. Basil,et al.  The Influence of Famous Athletes on Health Beliefs and Practices: Mark McGwire, Child Abuse Prevention, and Androstenedione , 2003, Journal of health communication.

[6]  William J. Brown,et al.  Parasocial Interaction and Identification: Social Change Processes for Effective Health Interventions , 2010, Health communication.

[7]  Jessica Fitts Willoughby,et al.  Using digital surveillance to examine the impact of public figure pancreatic cancer announcements on media and search query outcomes. , 2013, Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Monographs.

[8]  D. Cohn,et al.  Denver's increase in HIV counseling after Magic Johnson's HIV disclosure. , 1992, American journal of public health.

[9]  Michael D. Basil,et al.  Identification as a mediator of celebrity effects , 1996 .

[10]  S. Woolford,et al.  Understanding the role of cancer worry in creating a "teachable moment" for multiple risk factor reduction. , 2008, Social science & medicine.

[11]  S. Noar,et al.  Public Figure Announcements About Cancer and Opportunities for Cancer Communication: A Review and Research Agenda , 2014, Health communication.

[12]  K. Mccaul,et al.  A Descriptive Study of Breast Cancer Worry , 1998, Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

[13]  Seok Kang,et al.  Social Influence of a Religious Hero: The Late Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan's Effect on Cornea Donation and Volunteerism , 2010, Journal of health communication.

[14]  M. McCombs.  Agenda setting function of mass media , 1977 .

[15]  D. Metcalfe,et al.  Media coverage and public reaction to a celebrity cancer diagnosis. , 2011, Journal of public health.

[16]  M. Basil,et al.  Interpersonal Communication in News Diffusion: A Study of “Magic” Johnson's Announcement , 1994 .

[17]  B. Trock,et al.  Psychological side effects of breast cancer screening. , 1991, Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association.

[18]  Karen M. Emmons,et al.  Message Effects and Social Determinants of Health: Its Application to Cancer Disparities , 2006 .

[19]  M. Fishbein,et al.  Using theory to design effective health behavior interventions. , 2003 .

[20]  Gary L. Kreps,et al.  The Health Information National Trends Survey: Research From the Baseline , 2006, Journal of health communication.

[21]  William J. Brown,et al.  Media Celebrities and Public Health: Responses to 'Magic' Johnson's HIV Disclosure and Its Impact on AIDS Risk and High-Risk Behaviors , 1995 .

[22]  Robin L. Nabi,et al.  The Persuasive Influence of Emotion in Cancer Prevention and Detection Messages , 2006 .

[23]  Brian G. Southwell,et al.  When (and Why) Interpersonal Talk Matters for Campaigns , 2009 .

[24]  Marie Faerber,et al.  The Sage Sourcebook Of Advanced Data Analysis Methods For Communication Research , 2016 .

[25]  S. Noar.  A 10-Year Retrospective of Research in Health Mass Media Campaigns: Where Do We Go From Here? , 2006, Journal of health communication.

[26]  J. Moskowitz,et al.  The association between magic Johnson's HIV serostatus disclosure and condom use in at‐risk respondents , 1997 .

[27]  K. Hunt,et al.  Coverage of Jade Goody's cervical cancer in UK newspapers: a missed opportunity for health promotion? , 2010, BMC public health.

[28]  Tse-Hua Shih,et al.  Comparing Response Rates from Web and Mail Surveys: A Meta-Analysis , 2008 .

[29]  J. Ostroff,et al.  The role of cancer worry in cancer screening: A theoretical and empirical review of the literature , 2005, Psycho-oncology.

[30]  M. Allen,et al.  When a Celebrity Contracts a Disease: The Example of Earvin "Magic" Johnson's Announcement That He Was HIV Positive , 2003, Journal of health communication.

[31]  M. Brown,et al.  The presidential effect: the public health response to media coverage about Ronald Reagan's colon cancer episode. , 1990, Public opinion quarterly.

[32]  B. Tabachnick,et al.  Using multivariate statistics, 5th ed. , 2007 .

[33]  S. Gallinger,et al.  Pancreatic cancer risk counselling and screening: impact on perceived risk and psychological functioning , 2010, Familial Cancer.

[34]  Jonathan Cohen.  Defining Identification: A Theoretical Look at the Identification of Audiences With Media Characters , 2001 .

[35]  S. Kalichman,et al.  The disclosure of celebrity HIV infection: its effects on public attitudes. , 1992, American journal of public health.

[36]  Diana Adler,et al.  Using Multivariate Statistics , 2016 .

[37]  K. Viswanath.  Science and society: the communications revolution and cancer control. , 2005, Nature reviews. Cancer.

[38]  H. Kelman.  PROCESSES OF OPINION CHANGE , 1961 .

[39]  Andrew F. Hayes,et al.  Contemporary approaches to assessing mediation in communication research. , 2008 .

[40]  Chia Siow Yue,et al.  Information Technology in Asia: New Development Paradigms , 2002 .

[41]  N Urban,et al.  Breast cancer worry and mammography use by women with and without a family history in a population-based sample. , 2003, Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology.

[42]  H. Kelman.  Compliance, identification, and internalization three processes of attitude change , 1958 .

[43]  A. Kavanagh,et al.  Use of breast cancer screening and treatment services by Australian women aged 25-44 years following Kylie Minogue's breast cancer diagnosis. , 2008, International journal of epidemiology.

[44]  R. Hornik.  Exposure: Theory and Evidence about All the Ways it Matters , 2002 .

[45]  M. Comello.  William James on “Possible Selves”: Implications for Studying Identity in Communication Contexts , 2009 .

[46]  D. Lane,et al.  The impact of media coverage of Nancy Reagan's experience on breast cancer screening. , 1989, American journal of public health.

[47]  William J Brown,et al.  Sports Celebrities and Public Health: Diego Maradona's Influence on Drug Use Prevention , 2010, Journal of health communication.

[48]  E. Rogers.  Diffusion of Innovations , 1962 .

[49]  A. Hayes.  PROCESS : A Versatile Computational Tool for Observed Variable Mediation , Moderation , and Conditional Process Modeling 1 , 2012 .

[50]  S. Riddell,et al.  The emperor of all maladies: A biography of cancer , 2011 .