Cargando…

Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis

During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media content analysis allowed for tracking attitudes toward newly introduced vaccines. However, current evidence is limited to single social media platforms. Our objective was to compare arguments used by anti-vaxxers in the context of COVID-19 vaccines across F...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wawrzuta, Dominik, Klejdysz, Justyna, Jaworski, Mariusz, Gotlib, Joanna, Panczyk, Mariusz
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9332808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35893839
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10081190
_version_ 1784758739925991424
author Wawrzuta, Dominik
Klejdysz, Justyna
Jaworski, Mariusz
Gotlib, Joanna
Panczyk, Mariusz
author_facet Wawrzuta, Dominik
Klejdysz, Justyna
Jaworski, Mariusz
Gotlib, Joanna
Panczyk, Mariusz
author_sort Wawrzuta, Dominik
collection PubMed
description During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media content analysis allowed for tracking attitudes toward newly introduced vaccines. However, current evidence is limited to single social media platforms. Our objective was to compare arguments used by anti-vaxxers in the context of COVID-19 vaccines across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. We obtained the data set of 53,671 comments regarding COVID-19 vaccination published between August 2021 and February 2022. After that, we established categories of anti-vaccine content, manually classified comments, and compared the frequency of occurrence of the categories between social media platforms. We found that anti-vaxxers on social media use 14 categories of arguments against COVID-19 vaccines. The frequency of these categories varies across different social media platforms. The anti-vaxxers’ activity on Facebook and Twitter is similar, focusing mainly on distrust of government and allegations regarding vaccination safety and effectiveness. Anti-vaxxers on TikTok mainly focus on personal freedom, while Instagram users encouraging vaccination often face criticism suggesting that vaccination is a private matter that should not be shared. Due to the differences in vaccine sentiment among users of different social media platforms, future research and educational campaigns should consider these distinctions, focusing more on the platforms popular among adolescents (i.e., Instagram and TikTok).
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-9332808
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2022
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-93328082022-07-29 Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis Wawrzuta, Dominik Klejdysz, Justyna Jaworski, Mariusz Gotlib, Joanna Panczyk, Mariusz Vaccines (Basel) Article During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media content analysis allowed for tracking attitudes toward newly introduced vaccines. However, current evidence is limited to single social media platforms. Our objective was to compare arguments used by anti-vaxxers in the context of COVID-19 vaccines across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. We obtained the data set of 53,671 comments regarding COVID-19 vaccination published between August 2021 and February 2022. After that, we established categories of anti-vaccine content, manually classified comments, and compared the frequency of occurrence of the categories between social media platforms. We found that anti-vaxxers on social media use 14 categories of arguments against COVID-19 vaccines. The frequency of these categories varies across different social media platforms. The anti-vaxxers’ activity on Facebook and Twitter is similar, focusing mainly on distrust of government and allegations regarding vaccination safety and effectiveness. Anti-vaxxers on TikTok mainly focus on personal freedom, while Instagram users encouraging vaccination often face criticism suggesting that vaccination is a private matter that should not be shared. Due to the differences in vaccine sentiment among users of different social media platforms, future research and educational campaigns should consider these distinctions, focusing more on the platforms popular among adolescents (i.e., Instagram and TikTok). MDPI 2022-07-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9332808/ /pubmed/35893839 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10081190 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wawrzuta, Dominik
Klejdysz, Justyna
Jaworski, Mariusz
Gotlib, Joanna
Panczyk, Mariusz
Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis
title Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis
title_full Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis
title_fullStr Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis
title_full_unstemmed Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis
title_short Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination on Social Media: A Cross-Platform Analysis
title_sort attitudes toward covid-19 vaccination on social media: a cross-platform analysis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9332808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35893839
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10081190
work_keys_str_mv AT wawrzutadominik attitudestowardcovid19vaccinationonsocialmediaacrossplatformanalysis
AT klejdyszjustyna attitudestowardcovid19vaccinationonsocialmediaacrossplatformanalysis
AT jaworskimariusz attitudestowardcovid19vaccinationonsocialmediaacrossplatformanalysis
AT gotlibjoanna attitudestowardcovid19vaccinationonsocialmediaacrossplatformanalysis
AT panczykmariusz attitudestowardcovid19vaccinationonsocialmediaacrossplatformanalysis