Gender Discrimination in Engagement with Health Educational Videos: The Moderating Effect of Medical Jargon Use and Background Music

Short video platforms (SVPs) have emerged as a popular medium for doctors to deliver health education to the public, aiming to improve public health literacy and establish themselves as influencers. However, it remains unclear whether gender discrimination, which female doctors often experience in traditional patient−doctor interactions, also exists in user engagement with health educational videos on SVPs. Additionally, existing studies have limited insights into how video characteristics moderate the effect of doctors’ gender on user engagement. This study seeks to address these gaps by examining the effect of doctors’ gender on user engagement and investigating how medical jargon use and background music moderate this relationship. An archival analysis was conducted to test our hypotheses, and preliminary results support these hypotheses. The findings of this study can provide theoretical implications for the literature on gender, social media, and health information systems, as well as practical implications for SVP managers and doctors. © 2024 Jingjing Tong, David (Jingjun) Xu