  In this paper, we investigate how vaping is framed differently (2008-2021)
between US news and social media. We analyze 15,711 news articles and 1,231,379
Facebook posts about vaping to study the differences in framing between media
varieties. We use word embeddings to provide two-dimensional visualizations of
the semantic changes around vaping for news and for social media. We detail
that news media framing of vaping shifted over time in line with emergent
regulatory trends, such as; flavored vaping bans, with little discussion around
vaping as a smoking cessation tool. We found that social media discussions were
far more varied, with transitions toward vaping both as a public health harm
and as a smoking cessation tool. Our cloze test, dynamic topic model, and
question answering showed similar patterns, where social media, but not news
media, characterizes vaping as combustible cigarette substitute. We use n-grams
to detail that social media data first centered on vaping as a smoking
cessation tool, and in 2019 moved toward narratives around vaping regulation,
similar to news media frames. Overall, social media tracks the evolution of
vaping as a social practice, while news media reflects more risk based
concerns. A strength of our work is how the different techniques we have
applied validate each other. Stakeholders may utilize our findings to intervene
around the framing of vaping, and may design communications campaigns that
improve the way society sees vaping, thus possibly aiding smoking cessation;
and reducing youth vaping.
