Reactions of Young Adults to the Death of Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Implications for Cancer Communication
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Communication Research Reports Vol. 30, No. 2, April–June 2013, pp. 115–126 Reactions of Young Adults to the Death of Apple CEO Steve Jobs: Implications for Cancer Communication Jessica Gall Myrick, Jessica Fitts Willoughby, Seth M. Noar, & Jennifer Brown On October 5, 2011, the Chief Executive Officer of Apple1, Inc., Steve Jobs, died from pan- creatic cancer. Media outlets covered the event with fervor, and the public responded in kind. The purpose of this study was to examine public reaction to Jobs’s death from pancreatic cancer in relation to general and health-specific information-seeking, as well as interperso- nal communication. Using a survey conducted within weeks of Jobs’s death (N ¼ 401), high awareness of this event was found, as were significant amounts of information-seeking and interpersonal communication with regard to his death. Emotional responses to his death were found to be the best predictors of related health communication behaviors. Along with descriptive findings of who communicated, with whom, when, and about what, these findings provide guidance for health communicators, who may use celebrity cancer announcements or deaths to capitalize on increased attention to the disease. Keywords: Cancer Communication; Celebrity Effects; Health Information–seeking; Interpersonal Communication; Steve Jobs Jessica Gall Myrick (MA, Indiana University, 2007) is a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jessica Fitts Willoughby (MA, Washington State University, 2010) is a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Seth M. Noar (PhD, University of Rhode Island, 2001) is an associ- ate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Jennifer Brown (MPH, University of North Carolina, 2012) is a Senior Research Program Coordinator at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Institute for Global Tobacco Control. Correspondence: Seth M. Noar, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Campus Box #3354, Chapel Hill, NC 27599; E-mail: noar@ email.unc.edu ISSN 0882-4096 (print)/ISSN 1746-4099 (online) # 2013 Eastern Communication Association DOI: 10.1080/08824096.2012.762906
116 J. G. Myrick et al. On October 5, 2011, the news flashed across smart phones and computer screens. It spread via telephone and word of mouth. Steve Jobs, Chief Executive Officer of Apple1, Inc., had passed away from pancreatic cancer. On October 6, 2011, users of the microblogging Website Twitter were mentioning Jobs at a rate of 6,049 times per second (Twitter, Inc., 2011), and searches for both ‘‘Steve Jobs’’ and ‘‘pancreatic cancer’’ on GoogleTM spiked (Noar, Ribisl, Althouse, Willoughby, & Ayers, 2013). Pancreatic cancer kills nearly 40,000 Americans per year (National Cancer Institute, 2012), yet it is underfunded compared to other cancers (Parker-Pope, 2008); however, after Jobs’s death, this underfunded cancer was receiving copius amounts of public attention. The media and public responses to announcements of illness or death of celebrities is not a new phenomenon. Perhaps the most high-profile instance of a celebrity announcing an illness was Earvin ‘‘Magic’’ Johnson’s disclosure that he was HIV- positive. This announcement led to increased public interest in and knowledge about AIDS, as well as behavioral changes in safe sex practices (Casey et al., 2003; Cohn, Miller, Yamaguchi, & Douglas, 1992; Kalichman & Hunter, 1992; Kalichman, Russell, Hunter, & Sarwer, 1993; Moskowitz, Binson, & Catania, 1997). Examples of celebrity effects in cancer communication include the media and public reaction to the breast cancer diagnoses of first ladies, among others (Fink, 1978; Lane, Polednak, & Burg, 1989). Celebrity announcements of cancer can spur increases in cancer-screening uptake (Kelaher et al., 2008) and information-seeking (Metcalfe, Price, & Powell, 2011). The purpose of this study was to examine public reaction to the death of Steve Jobs, particularly in the forms of general and health-specific information-seeking, as well as interpersonal communication. We also examined the context in which these reactions occurred. Literature Review Although particular subgroups have been found to react differently to public figures’ announcements of illnesses (Lane et al., 1989; Moskowitz et al., 1997; Nattinger, Hoffmann, Howell-Pelz, & Goodwin, 1998), scholars have yet to converge on an over- riding mechanism of the effects of cancer announcements or deaths on communications and health behaviors. One key theoretical mechanism may be identification. Identifi- cation theorists posit that people work to maintain or enhance self-defined relationships with others by attempting to adopt attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors of the indi- vidual with whom they identify (Kelman, 1958). Identification is a process where audi- ence members assume not only the identities, but also the goals and perspectives, of the media characters (Cohen, 2001). Identification differs from parasocial interaction— which can also induce emotional attachment—in that people may interact via media with public figures without necessarily identifying with those figures (Giles, 2002). A connection with a celebrity solely through media consumption involves ‘‘close emotional and psychological bonds with famous people they admire’’ (Brown & Basil, 2010, p. 602). Brown and Basil (1995) found people who identified more with Magic Johnson were more likely to intend to change risky sexual behaviors. Celebrity diagnoses or deaths due to cancer are also common in cancer news coverage (Jensen, Moriarty,
Communication Research Reports 117
Hurley, & Stryker, 2010). Social Identity Theory provides a framework for understand-
ing the effects of celebrity cancer news on audiences (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). As outlined
by Harwood and Sparks (2003; Sparks & Harwood, 2008; see also Villagran & Sparks,
2010), the level of group identification influences awareness of group-associated
illness, prevention, and treatment practices. In addition, if an individual identifies with
a celebrity, it is possible that person will talk to their ingroup members about the
celebrity’s cancer, thereby amplifying the effects of celebrity cancer news.
Emotional reactions to news of a public figure’s diagnosis also depend on the
intergroup relationship between celebrity and audience member. If audience
members perceive the celebrity with cancer as part of one of their valued social
groups (e.g., race, gender, nerd, entrepreneur, etc.), then identification may have
a stronger impact than without this group connection. Those who identify with
the public figure are more likely than others to experience intense emotions (Yzerbyt,
Dumont, Wigboldus, & Gordijn, 2003). Cohen (2001) noted that identification with
a figure portrayed in the media could induce empathetic emotions for that figure.
The outcomes of tertiary identification with a cancer patient depend on the type
of patient. If the patient is frail or passes away, this identification could result in
negative emotional consequences, whereas identification with a survivor of cancer
may result in positive reactions (Harwood & Sparks, 2003). Because Jobs succumbed
to pancreatic cancer, higher levels of identification with the technology icon could
lead to stronger feelings of sadness.
Cancer has historically and contemporarily been noted as a great generator of
emotions, from fear, sadness, and anger, to hope and awe (Dillard & Nabi, 2006;
Mukherjee, 2010). Emotions serve to ‘‘alter attention, shift certain behaviors upward
in response hierarchies, and activate relevant associative networks in memory’’ in
addition to ‘‘pulling us toward certain people, objects, actions, and ideas, and
pushing us away from others’’ (Levenson, 1994, p. 123). Discrete emotions serve
to motivate people to take certain types of actions (Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz,
1994; Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2006). Sadness—common in the face of the loss of
life—is associated with appraisals of uncertainty, which can lead to increased depth
of information processing and attention to messages (Small & Lerner, 2008; Tiedens
& Linton, 2001). This increased focus may motivate individuals to seek more infor-
mation about the situation and talk with others, particularly as a way to cope with the
sadness (Gross, 2008). The motivational properties of emotions have previously been
utilized in health campaigns, with messages designed around emotional truths (e.g.,
Gobe, 2001; Shafer, Cates, Diehl, & Hartmann, 2011). The emotions evoked by
a celebrity announcement of a cancer diagnosis or death may mimic the effects of
these emotional truths by driving people to take action to address health threats.
We sought to understand the public reaction to Steve Jobs’s death in terms of both
general and health-specific information-seeking and interpersonal communication,
including the context in which the public reaction took place. Health information-
seeking has been connected to positive outcomes, such as managing uncertainty
(Brashers, 2001), increased health self-efficacy, cancer screening, participation in
medical decision making, and reducing unhealthy behaviors (see Galarce, Ramanadhan,118 J. G. Myrick et al.
& Viswanath, 2011), whereas interpersonal communication can spread knowledge to
wider audiences and stimulate change (van den Putte, Yzer, Southwell, de Bruijn, &
Willemsen, 2011), as well as influence public sentiment (Southwell & Yzer, 2009).
The goal of this study was to advance an understanding of who was likely to engage
in information-seeking or interpersonal communication in response to Jobs’s death.
Our research questions and hypotheses follow:
RQ1: How did people react to the death of Steve Jobs in terms of general
information-seeking and interpersonal communication, including the context
of these actions (i.e., what media was used, over what period of time, what
topics were searched or talked about, and for how long)?
RQ2: How did people react to the death of Steve Jobs in terms of health-specific
information-seeking and interpersonal communication?
RQ3: Controlling for demographic factors, as well as known predictors, of cancer
information-seeking (previous general cancer information-seeking or a personal
and family experience with cancer), does identification with Steve Jobs or
emotional experiences (i.e., sadness) in response to Steve Jobs’s death predict
health information-seeking or interpersonal communication?
H1a: Sadness will mediate the relationship between identification with Jobs and
seeking information about Jobs’s illness.
H1b: Sadness will mediate the relationship between identification with Jobs and
talking with others about Jobs’s health or how he died.
Method
We conducted a survey of undergraduate students at a large, public university in the
Southeastern United States to assess reactions to Steve Jobs’s death. Because cancer
disproportionately affects racial minorities, and because racial minorities were under-
represented at the university, we worked with the registrar to obtain a stratified ran-
dom sample. The sample consisted of 3,000 undergraduate students, equally divided
among Caucasians, African Americans, and non-African American minorities.
We sent survey invitations to the official university e-mail addresses of students in the
sample on October 26, 2011, three weeks after Jobs’s death. Those who took the survey
were entered into a raffle to win one of three gift certificates from Amazon.com1: $250,
$150, or $100. We sent three reminder e-mails during a 3-week period. Participants
had to be 18 years of age or older to participate. Two e-mail addresses came back unde-
liverable, and five responses came back stating that these students no longer attended the
university. In total, 401 students completed the survey, for a 13.4% survey response rate.
This response rate reasonably compares to rates obtained in many Web-based surveys
(Shih & Fan, 2007, 2008). The mean age was 20.7 years (SD ¼ 1.2). A majority of
participants were seniors (46.4%) or juniors (33.5%) in college, and most were
non-Hispanic Caucasians (86.5%) and women (82.0%; see Table 1).
Measures
We developed and pretested a survey that assessed the following measures.Communication Research Reports 119
Table 1 Demographic Characteristics of the Sample
Variable n %
Gender
Female 332 83
Male 69 17
Race
White=Caucasian 347 87
Black=African American 18 4
Asian=Pacific Islander 13 3
Other=multiracial 23 6
Ethnicity
Hispanic 25 6
Not Hispanic 375 94
Not reported 1 .2
Demographics
These included gender, race and ethnicity, year in school, and age.
Steve Jobs’s Death
We asked if participants had heard about Steve Jobs’s death, through what medium
one heard, knowledge of how he died (recognition from 5 possible causes of death),
and if participants had sought information or discussed a variety of topics related
to Steve Jobs (i.e., how he died or his disease, his life accomplishments, and Apple
products) after hearing the news. The measures asking about information-seeking
and interpersonal discussion of how Steve Jobs died or his disease constituted the
main dependent variables in the study, and were dichotomously coded as either
having performed the behavior or not.
Identification
We adapted a nine-item scale to measure identification with Steve Jobs (Basil, 1996).
The scale asked respondents to rate on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), statements such as, ‘‘I like Steve Jobs’’ and ‘‘Steve Jobs
is a personal role model’’ (a ¼ .80).
Sadness
A three-item scale, adapted from Dillard and Shen (2007), asked participants to rate,
from 1 (none of this emotion) to 5 (a great deal of this emotion), how much they felt
‘‘sad,’’ ‘‘dreary,’’ and ‘‘dismal’’ in response to Steve Jobs’s death (a ¼ .85).120 J. G. Myrick et al. Other Cancer Items Participants were asked whether they had ever been diagnosed with cancer, whether a friend or family member had ever been diagnosed with cancer, and how often they generally seek cancer information from any source; these were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (all the time). These items were adapted from the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information National Trends Survey (Hesse, Moser, Rutten, & Kreps, 2006). Procedures Individuals interested in the online survey clicked a link in the e-mail invitation, which opened the survey in their Web browser. After answering the age eligibility question and providing consent, participants completed the online survey, which took about 10 min. All procedures were approved by the participating university’s institutional review board. Results Descriptive analysis of the data revealed the context within which respondents of different demographics reacted to Steve Jobs’s death (see Table 1). New media (e.g., social media and text message) were the most common ways people heard the news, followed by hearing it directly from someone else via interpersonal communication, with traditional news media—newspapers, television, or radio—being the least common sources of news about Jobs’s death. These results differed little by race or gender of respondent. In addition, 93% of respondents correctly identified pancreatic cancer from a list of five possible diseases as the cause of Steve Jobs’s death. RQ1 asked if people sought information or talked to others in response to Steve Jobs’s death. Of the 401 respondents, 66.6% reported seeking some type of information, with 87.5% respondents reporting having spoken with someone about Steve Jobs’s death. Nearly one-half (44.9%) of the 267 respondents who did seek information reported spending 30 min or less doing so. Nearly everyone (97%) who sought information did so using the Internet, and one-half of the respondents (50%) used social media to find more information about some aspect of Jobs’s life or his death. For the 350 respondents who spoke to others about Jobs’s death, 54.3% talked for 30 min or less. These respondents mostly talked to friends (95%), although a majority (50%) also spoke about Jobs with their families (see Table 2). RQ2 asked about health-oriented communication responses to Jobs’s death. Specifically, 4.5% of participants looked for information about pancreatic cancer. Of those who looked for information about pancreatic cancer, 76.5% looked for information about treatments, 88.2% looked for information about prevention, and 17.6% wanted to know if they were at risk for pancreatic cancer. A larger portion (13.2%) talked about pancreatic cancer with others. Of those who talked about pancreatic cancer, 60% talked with friends or family. The content of their conversa- tions largely concerned the definition of pancreatic cancer (69.8%), treatment
Communication Research Reports 121
Table 2 Descriptive Data on General Information-Seeking and Interpersonal
Communication in Response to Steve Jobs’s Death
Information-Seeking n % Interpersonal Communication n %
Did you seek out information Did you talk to anyone about
about his life or death? his life or death?
Yes 267 67 Yes 351 88
No 125 31 No 40 10
No response 9 2 No response 10 2
On what topics?a Who did you talk with?a
His life accomplishments 253 95 Significant other=spouse 94 27
How he died=his disease 120 45 Friend(s) 335 95
Apple1 computers or products 129 48 Coworker(s) 78 22
Other topics 18 7 Family member(s) besides 198 56
spouse
Roommate(s) 210 60
What media did you use?a Other people 1 .3
Internet on a desktop=laptop= 260 97 Health care provider(s) 0 0
tablet computer
Print news (newspapers, 70 26
magazines)
TV 50 19 What did you talk about?a
Internet on a mobile phone 92 34 His life accomplishments 303 86
Social media (e.g., Facebook1, 134 50 Apple computers or 267 76
blog) products
Other media 3 1 How he died=his disease 214 61
E-mail 4 1 Other topics 27 8
Radio 3 1
How much time did you How much time did you
spend seeking information? spend talking?
30 min or less 120 45 30 min or less 190 54
More than 30 min–1 90 34 More than 30 min–1 109 31
More than 1hr–2 hr 37 14 More than 1hr–2 hr 36 10
More than 2hr–3 hr 14 5 More than 2hr–3 hr 9 3
More than 3 hr 6 2 More than 3 hr 6 2
Over what period of time Over what period of time
did you seek information? did you talk?
Only on the day that I learned 20 7 Only on the day that 13 4
of his death I learned of his death
The first few days after 179 67 The first few days after 218 62
All week 35 13 All week 75 21
All week and 1 week after 23 9 All week and 1 week after 27 8
All week and 2 weeks after 9 3 All week and 2 weeks after 16 5
a
These items were answered in a ‘‘check all that apply’’ format; thus, percentages sum to greater than 100%.122 J. G. Myrick et al.
Table 3 Multiple Logistic Regression Analyses Predicting Information-Seeking and
Interpersonal Communication About Jobs’s Illness
Interpersonal
Information–Seeking Communication
(N ¼ 117) (N ¼ 211)
Variable M (SD) OR 95% CI p OR 95% CI P
Gender — 1.25 (0.65, 2.38) .51 0.94 (0.53, 1.65) .82
Race: African American — 0.84 (0.26, 2.72) .77 1.40 (0.51, 3.87) .51
Race: Asian — 3.13 (0.96, 10.15) .06 1.01 (0.31, 3.26) .99
Race: Other=multiracial — 0.37 (0.11, 1.29) .12 0.96 (0.40, 2.87) .92
Had cancer — 0.55 (0.09, 3.51) .53 0.23 (0.02, 2.24) .21
Family member with cancer — 0.97 (0.53, 1.81) .93 1.71 (0.97, 3.01) .06
Cancer information-seeking 2.45 (0.83) 1.22 (0.90, 1.64) .20 1.37 (1.03, 1.82) .03
Sadness 2.59 (0.97) 1.39 (1.05, 1.85) .02 1.40 (1.08, 1.83) .01
Identification 2.90 (0.57) 0.86 (0.53, 1.40) .55 1.02 (0.65, 1.60) .94
How first heard: new media — 1.15 (0.39, 3.40) .80 2.46 (0.90, 6.71) .08
How first heard: interpersonal — 1.69 (0.54, 5.29) .37 3.05 (1.04, 8.91) .04
Note. OR ¼ odds ratio; CI ¼ confidence interval; items in bold are significant at p < .05.
(32.1%), or a friend or family member’s risk for the disease (24.5%). There were no
differences based on race or gender in searching for or talking about health issues.1
A series of logistic regressions were run to answer RQ3, which asked how identi-
fication and emotional reactions to Jobs’s death might predict seeking information or
talking about his death or disease (see Table 3). Although no demographic variables
(i.e., gender and race) or personal experiences with cancer predicted these behaviors,
sadness predicted health information-seeking (odds ratio [OR] ¼ 1.39; p < .05) and
talking about health (OR ¼ 1.40; p < .05). In the model predicting talking about
health, cancer information-seeking (OR ¼ 1.37; p < .05) and having first heard from
another person (OR ¼ 3.05; p < .05) were significant predictors of the behavior.
To test H1a, which predicted sadness would mediate the effect between identifi-
cation with Jobs and seeking information about Jobs’s health or how he died, we used
bootstrapping procedures with 1,000 bootstrap samples and bias-corrected confi-
dence intervals. Gender, race, ethnicity, personal history of cancer, family history
of cancer, general cancer information-seeking, and how the participants first heard
of Jobs’s death served as control variables. This analysis revealed a significant, indirect
effect for sadness (b ¼ 0.31, p < .05), supporting H1a. This model predicted between
4.29% and 6.06% of the variance in information-seeking based on Cox and Snell’s
R2 and Nagelkerke’s R2 values. The direct effect between identification and
health-related information-seeking was not significant (b ¼ 0.14, p ¼ .57), revealing
that the effects of identification on this behavior were driven by the emotional reac-
tion and not a direct relationship between the two variables.Communication Research Reports 123 The same method was used to test H1b, which predicted that sadness would mediate the relationship between identification with Jobs and talking with others about Jobs’s health or how he died. There was a significant, indirect effect of identi- fication on interpersonal communication about health topics (b ¼ 0.29, p < .05). This model predicted between 5.56% and 7.43% of the variance in information-seeking based on Cox and Snell’s R2 and Nagelkerke’s R2 values. Identification did not have a direct effect on the target behavior (b ¼ 0.03, p ¼ .92), demonstrating that increases in identification worked through sadness to increase rates of talking about health issues related to Jobs, supporting H1b. Discussion More than two-thirds of our sample either sought information or spoke to someone about Jobs’s death. An impressive 93% of the respondents accurately identified the cause of death—pancreatic cancer—giving a disease among the top five cancer killers in the United States extensive public exposure to an audience young enough to adopt prevention behaviors. The participants relied heavily on technological platforms to find information about Jobs or the circumstances surrounding his passing. More than one in four participants reported learning about Jobs’s death via social media. Social media was a popular venue for seeking information about his life and death, implying this forum would be a promising platform for future cancer-prevention campaigns. In our sample, a greater identification with Jobs resulted in more sadness felt in the wake of Jobs’s death, which, in turn, motivated participants to seek information about Jobs’s health or to talk with someone about it. Emotions motivate actions that serve the evolutionary function of helping people cope with their person–environment relation- ship (Lazarus, 1991). Those who identified with Jobs used communication behaviors— information-seeking and interpersonal discussion—to cope with the news that had recently disrupted their environment. One implication is that emotional appraisal tendencies (Lerner & Keltner, 2000) may guide communication and behavior decisions on the heels of celebrity cancer news more than cognitive judgments. The data here indicate that any theoretical modeling of celebrity effects related to cancer should emphasize emotion as a possible mechanism, with a social identity framework providing additional insight given the intergroup connections audiences may have with celebrities. Although searches for and conversations about pancreatic cancer, in particular, were less common than those about general health issues surrounding Jobs’s death, these searches and conversations did occur, despite the low risk of pancreatic cancer for the college-aged population sampled. The ambiguity surrounding Jobs’s health—his previous liver transplant, weight loss, and frequent public denials of the seriousness of his condition—may have dampened results for pancreatic cancer communication while amplifying results related to general health issues. Conclusion This study adds to the current literature on health information-seeking by demon- strating how identification with a media figure sparks emotions that can motivate
124 J. G. Myrick et al.
health information-seeking and interpersonal communication. Despite the homo-
geneous sample, and the lack of demographic similarity between the largely young
adult female sample and Jobs, there were demographic and psychological factors that
predicted information-seeking and interpersonal communication about the health
issues surrounding Jobs’s death. Given the short time frame after Jobs’s death in which
respondents took action, these data should encourage cancer advocacy groups to
prepare public campaigns for an immediate launch in the event of a celebrity’s passing.
Future research would benefit from studying other emotional reactions in
response to celebrity diagnoses or deaths. A comparison of reactions to a celebrity
diagnosis—which is inherently uncertain—versus an announcement of death—
inherently certain in its finality—would help reveal further mechanisms behind these
effects. Which aspects of a celebrity audience identify with (e.g., race, gender, occu-
pation, ideology, health behavior and diagnosis, etc.) and why are important areas of
inquiry for better understanding the implications of identification with celebrities
on audiences on cancer prevention and detection communication and behavior.
Note
[1] A chi-square test for independence (with Yates’s continuity correction) indicated a signifi-
cant association between searching for and talking about health issues, v2(1, N ¼ 401) ¼
28.59, p < .001 (U ¼ .27).
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