UCSF

Comment sections on social media websites such as YouTube provide a unique venue to observe contemporaneous audience interpretation and discussion of entertainment television content. While entertainment-education research has largely examined whether and how exposure to television content influences viewer knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs, analyzing comment sections provides an opportunity to observe how audiences interpret and discuss these plotlines in an organic setting. We examined comments posted to YouTube clips of entertainment television abortion plotlines to document how these comments explicitly discussed the plotlines depicted and what themes emerged in these discussions. We identified 15 YouTube clips of abortion plotlines posted between 2018 and 2023 on official network accounts. We used thematic analysis techniques to qualitatively assess the top 20 comments and replies for each video (n = 162). Twenty-six percent of all comments referenced the content of the clip. Overarching themes included (1) evaluating the perceived authenticity of abortion portrayals, (2) interpreting characters' motivations and emotional experiences, and (3) comparing the quality and impact of abortion storylines across various television shows. We found that audiences engaged in sophisticated meaning-making around abortion storylines. These comment sections illustrate the kinds of reflective engagement that contemporary theories of meaningful (eudaimonic) entertainment propose are central to narrative influence.