scholarly journals Social Media Study of Public Opinions on Potential COVID-19 Vaccines: Informing Dissent, Disparities, and Dissemination

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanjia Lyu ◽  
Junda Wang ◽  
Wei Wu ◽  
Viet Duong ◽  
Xiyang Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Effective Vaccine ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Public Opinions ◽  
Media Study ◽  
The People ◽  
Twitter Users

AbstractThe current development of vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 is unprecedented. Little is known, however, about the nuanced public opinions on the coming vaccines. We adopt a human-guided machine learning framework (using more than 40,000 rigorously selected tweets from more than 20,000 distinct Twitter users) to capture public opinions on the potential vaccines for SARS-CoV-2, classifying them into three groups: pro-vaccine, vaccine-hesitant, and anti-vaccine. We aggregate opinions at the state and country levels, and find that the major changes in the percentages of different opinion groups roughly correspond to the major pandemic-related events. Interestingly, the percentage of the pro-vaccine group is lower in the Southeast part of the United States. Using multinomial logistic regression, we compare demographics, social capital, income, religious status, political affiliations, geo-locations, sentiment of personal pandemic experience and non-pandemic experience, and county-level pandemic severity perception of these three groups to investigate the scope and causes of public opinions on vaccines. We find that socioeconomically disadvantaged groups are more likely to hold polarized opinions on potential COVID-19 vaccines. The anti-vaccine opinion is the strongest among the people who have the worst personal pandemic experience. Next, by conducting counterfactual analyses, we find that the U.S. public is most concerned about the safety, effectiveness, and political issues regarding potential vaccines for COVID-19, and improving personal pandemic experience increases the vaccine acceptance level. We believe this is the first large-scale social media-based study to analyze public opinions on potential COVID-19 vaccines that can inform more effective vaccine distribution policies and strategies.

scholarly journals Public Opinions towards COVID-19 in California and New York on Twitter

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueting Wang ◽  
Canruo Zou ◽  
Zidian Xie ◽  
Dongmei Li
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
New York State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Opinions ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Negative Sentiment ◽  
Over Time

Background: With the pandemic of COVID-19 and the release of related policies, discussions about the COVID-19 are widespread online. Social media becomes a reliable source for understanding public opinions toward this virus outbreak. Objective: This study aims to explore public opinions toward COVID-19 on social media by comparing the differences in sentiment changes and discussed topics between California and New York in the United States. Methods: A dataset with COVID-19-related Twitter posts was collected from March 5, 2020 to April 2, 2020 using Twitter streaming API. After removing any posts unrelated to COVID-19, as well as posts that contain promotion and commercial information, two individual datasets were created based on the geolocation tags with tweets, one containing tweets from California state and the other from New York state. Sentiment analysis was conducted to obtain the sentiment score for each COVID-19 tweet. Topic modeling was applied to identify top topics related to COVID-19. Results: While the number of COVID-19 cases increased more rapidly in New York than in California in March 2020, the number of tweets posted has a similar trend over time in both states. COVID-19 tweets from California had more negative sentiment scores than New York. There were some fluctuations in sentiment scores in both states over time, which might correlate with the policy changes and the severity of COVID-19 pandemic. The topic modeling results showed that the popular topics in both California and New York states are similar, with "protective measures" as the most prevalent topic associated with COVID-19 in both states. Conclusions: Twitter users from California had more negative sentiment scores towards COVID-19 than Twitter users from New York. The prevalent topics about COVID-19 discussed in both states were similar with some slight differences.

scholarly journals Social media study of public opinions on potential COVID-19 vaccines: informing dissent, disparities, and dissemination

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanjia Lyu ◽  
Junda Wang ◽  
Wei Wu ◽  
Viet Duong ◽  
Xiyang Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinions ◽  
Media Study

scholarly journals Engaging for Puerto Rico: #RickyRenuncia (and #RickySeQueda) during El Verano del 19 and digital identities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danilo T Perez-Rivera ◽  
Christopher Torres Lugo ◽  
Alexis R Santos-Lozada
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Puerto Rican Diaspora

Between July 13-24, 2019 the people of Puerto Rico took the streets after a series of corruption scandals shocked the political establishment. The social uprising resulted in the ousting of the Governor of Puerto Rico (Dr. Ricardo Rosselló, Ricky), the resignation of the majority of his staff something unprecedented in the history of Puerto Rico; this period has been called El Verano del 19 (Summer of 19). Social media played a crucial role in both the organization and dissemination of the protests, marches, and other activities that occurred within this period. Puerto Ricans in the island and around the world engaged in this social movement through the digital revolution mainly under the hashtag #RickyRenuncia (Ricky Resign), with a small counter movement under the hashtag #RickySeQueda (Ricky will stay). The purpose of this study is to illustrate the magnitude and grass roots nature of the political movement’s social media presence, as well as their characteristics of the population of both movements and their structures. We found that #RickyRenuncia was used approximately one million times in the period of analysis while #RickySeQueda barely reached 6,000 tweets. Particularly, the pervasiveness of cliques in the #RickySeQueda show concentrations of authority dedicated to its propagation, whilst the #RickyRenuncia propagation was much more distributed and decentralized with little to no interaction between significant nodes of authority. Noteworthy was the role of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States of America and around the world, contributing close to 40% of all geo-located tweets. Finally, we found that the Twitter followers of the former governor had indicators of being composed of two distinct populations: 1) those active in social media and 2) those who follow the account but who are not active participants of the social network. We discuss the implications of these findings on the interpretation of emergence, structure and dissemination of social activism and countermovement to these activities in the context of Puerto Rico.

scholarly journals Evaluation of United States chiropractic professional subgroups: a survey of randomly sampled chiropractors

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan A. Gliedt ◽  
Stephen M. Perle ◽  
Aaron A. Puhl ◽  
Sarah Daehler ◽  
Michael J. Schneider ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Healthcare System ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chiropractic Profession ◽  
Practice Characteristic ◽  
And Behaviors

Abstract Background Professional subgroups are common and may play a role in aiding professional maturity or impeding professional legitimization. The chiropractic profession in the United States has a long history of diverse intra-professional subgroups with varying ideologies and practice styles. To our knowledge, large-scale quantification of chiropractic professional subgroups in the United States has not been conducted. The purpose of this study was to quantify and describe the clinical practice beliefs and behaviors associated with United States chiropractic subgroups. Methods A 10% random sample of United States licensed chiropractors (n = 8975) was selected from all 50 state regulatory board lists and invited to participate in a survey. The survey consisted of a 7-item questionnaire; 6 items were associated with chiropractic ideological and practice characteristics and 1 item was related to the self-identified role of chiropractic in the healthcare system which was utilized as the dependent variable to identify chiropractic subgroups. Multinomial logistic regression with predictive margins was used to analyze which responses to the 6 ideology and practice characteristic items were predictive of chiropractic subgroups. Results A total of 3538 responses were collected (39.4% response rate). Respondents self-identified into three distinct subgroups based on the perceived role of the chiropractic profession in the greater healthcare system: 56.8% were spine/neuromusculoskeletal focused; 22.0% were primary care focused; and 21.2% were vertebral subluxation focused. Patterns of responses to the 6 ideologies and practice characteristic items were substantially different across the three professional subgroups. Conclusions Respondents self-identified into one of three distinct intra-professional subgroups. These subgroups can be differentiated along themes related to clinical practice beliefs and behaviors.

scholarly journals Feasibility of Utilizing Social Media to Promote HPV Self-Collected Sampling among Medically Underserved Women in a Rural Southern City in the United States (U.S.)

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (20) ◽  
pp. 10820
Author(s):  
Matthew Asare ◽  
Beth A. Lanning ◽  
Sher Isada ◽  
Tiffany Rose ◽  
Hadii M. Mamudu
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Pap Smear ◽  
Multinomial Logistic Regression ◽  
The United States ◽  
Medically Underserved ◽  
Willingness To Participate ◽  
Underserved Women ◽  
Support Cost

Background: Social media (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter) as communication channels have great potential to deliver Human papillomavirus self-test (HPVST) intervention to medically underserved women (MUW) such as women of low income. However, little is known about MUW’s willingness to participate in HPVST intervention delivered through social media. We evaluated factors that contribute to MUW’s intention to participate in the social media-related intervention for HPVST. Methods: A 21-item survey was administered among women receiving food from a local food pantry in a U.S. southern state. Independent variables were social media usage facilitators (including confidentiality, social support, cost, and convenience), and barriers (including misinformation, time-consuming, inefficient, and privacy concerns). Dependent variables included the likelihood of participating in social-driven intervention for HPVST. Both variables were measured on a 5-point scale. We used multinomial logistic regression to analyze the data. Results: A total of 254 women (mean age 48.9 ± 10.7 years) comprising Whites (40%), Hispanics (29%), Blacks (27%), and Other (4%) participated in the study. We found that over 44% of the women were overdue for their pap smears for the past three years, 12% had never had a pap smear, and 34% were not sure if they had had a pap smear. Over 82% reported frequent social media (e.g., Facebook) usage, and 52% reported willingness to participate in social media-driven intervention for HPVST. Women who reported that social media provide privacy (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) = 6.23, 95% CI: 3.56, 10.92), provide social support (AOR = 7.18, 95% CI: 4.03, 12.80), are less costly (AOR = 6.71, 95% CI: 3.80, 11.85), and are convenient (AOR = 6.17, 95% CI: 3.49, 10.92) had significantly increased odds of participating in social media intervention for HPVST. Conclusions: The findings underscore that the majority of the MUW are overdue for cervical cancer screening, regularly use social media, and are willing to participate in social media-driven intervention. Social media could be used to promote HPV self-testing among MUW.

scholarly journals How advocacy affects Twitter migraine conversations: A pilot cross-sectional survey of Northeast American “migraine” landscape on Twitter from May to June 2020

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 251581632097208
Author(s):  
Pengfei Zhang ◽  
Santosh Bhaskarabhatla
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Network Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Closeness Centrality ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Annual Conference ◽  
Sources Of Information

Background: Twitter is a leading microblogging platform, with over 126 million daily active users as of 2019, which allows for large-scale analysis of tweets related to migraine. June 2020 encompassed the National Migraine and Headache Awareness Month in the United States and the American Headache Society’s virtual annual conference, which offer opportunities for us to study online migraine advocacy. Objective: We aim to study the content of individual tweets about migraine, as well as study patterns of other topics that were discussed in those tweets. In addition, we aim to study the sources of information that people reference within their tweets. Thirdly, we want to study how online awareness and advocacy movements shape these conversations about migraine. Methods: We designed a Twitter robot that records all unique public tweets containing the word “migraine” from May 8th, 2020 to June 23rd, 2020, within a 400 km radius of New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States. We built two network analysis models, one for the months of May 2020 and June 2020. The model for the month of May served as a control group for the model for the month of June, the Migraine Awareness Month. Our network model was developed with the following rule: if two hashtag topics co-exist in a single tweet, they are considered nodes connected by an edge in our network model. We then determine the top 30 most important hashtags in the month of May and June through applications of degree, between-ness, and closeness centrality. We also generated highly connected subgraphs (HCS) to categorize clusters of conversations within each of our models. Finally, we tally the websites referenced by these tweets during each month and categorized these websites according to the HCS subgroups. Results: Migraine advocacy related tweets are more popular in June when compared to May as judged by degree and closeness centrality measurements. They remained unchanged when judged by between-ness centralities. The HCS algorithm categorizes the hashtags into a large single dominant conversation in both months. In each of the months, advocacy related hashtags are apart of each of the dominant conversation. There are more hashtag topics as well as more unique websites referenced in the dominant conversation in June than in May. In addition, there are many smaller subgroups of migraine-related hashtags, and in each of these subgroups, there are a maximum of two websites referenced. Conclusion: We find a network analysis approach to be fruitful in the area of migraine social media research. Migraine advocacy tweets on Twitter not only rise in popularity during migraine awareness month but also may potentially bring in more diverse sources of online references into the Twitter migraine conversation. The smaller subgroups we identified suggest that there are marginalized conversations referencing a limited number of websites, creating a possibility of an “echo chamber” phenomenon. These subgroups provide an opportunity for targeted migraine advocacy. Our study therefore highlights the success as well as potential opportunities for social media advocacy on Twitter.

scholarly journals Social media-predicted personality traits and values can help match people to their ideal jobs

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (52) ◽  
pp. 26459-26464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret L. Kern ◽  
Paul X. McCarthy ◽  
Deepanjan Chakrabarty ◽  
Marian-Andrei Rizoiu
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Personality Profiles ◽  
Linguistic Information ◽  
Psychological Profiles ◽  
Twitter Users

Work is thought to be more enjoyable and beneficial to individuals and society when there is congruence between one’s personality and one’s occupation. We provide large-scale evidence that occupations have distinctive psychological profiles, which can successfully be predicted from linguistic information unobtrusively collected through social media. Based on 128,279 Twitter users representing 3,513 occupations, we automatically assess user personalities and visually map the personality profiles of different professions. Similar occupations cluster together, pointing to specific sets of jobs that one might be well suited for. Observations that contradict existing classifications may point to emerging occupations relevant to the 21st century workplace. Findings illustrate how social media can be used to match people to their ideal occupation.

Environment and technology dominate the WEF agenda

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
The People ◽  
Impact Risk ◽  
Trade Deals ◽  
First Time

Significance For the first time in the eleven-year history of the survey, no economic risk makes the list of the top five most likely or biggest impact risks. In contrast, large-scale terrorist attacks make the top five most likely risks for the first time and weapons of mass destruction are cited as the highest impact risk. All five environment-related risks are ranked among the top ten highest impact risks for the first time -- four in the top five: extreme weather events; water crises; major natural disasters; and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation. The survey cites strengthening global cooperation systems as a top five challenge, and says these environmental risks will be exacerbated if cooperation diminishes. Impacts Nearly a third of respondents think that increasing polarisation will be an underlying trend over the next ten years. More must be done to include the people left behind by technological change -- more than 4 billion lack internet access. The United States may withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement, and a number of free trade deals are at risk.

scholarly journals Analyzing Political Polarization on Social Media by Deleting Bot Spamming

2022 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Riccardo Cantini ◽  
Fabrizio Marozzo ◽  
Domenico Talia ◽  
Paolo Trunfio
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Opinion Mining ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Rich Data

Social media platforms are part of everyday life, allowing the interconnection of people around the world in large discussion groups relating to every topic, including important social or political issues. Therefore, social media have become a valuable source of information-rich data, commonly referred to as Social Big Data, effectively exploitable to study the behavior of people, their opinions, moods, interests and activities. However, these powerful communication platforms can be also used to manipulate conversation, polluting online content and altering the popularity of users, through spamming activities and misinformation spreading. Recent studies have shown the use on social media of automatic entities, defined as social bots, that appear as legitimate users by imitating human behavior aimed at influencing discussions of any kind, including political issues. In this paper we present a new methodology, namely TIMBRE (Time-aware opInion Mining via Bot REmoval), aimed at discovering the polarity of social media users during election campaigns characterized by the rivalry of political factions. This methodology is temporally aware and relies on a keyword-based classification of posts and users. Moreover, it recognizes and filters out data produced by social media bots, which aim to alter public opinion about political candidates, thus avoiding heavily biased information. The proposed methodology has been applied to a case study that analyzes the polarization of a large number of Twitter users during the 2016 US presidential election. The achieved results show the benefits brought by both removing bots and taking into account temporal aspects in the forecasting process, revealing the high accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed approach. Finally, we investigated how the presence of social bots may affect political discussion by studying the 2016 US presidential election. Specifically, we analyzed the main differences between human and artificial political support, estimating also the influence of social bots on legitimate users.

What’s political Twitter talking about?

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-190
Author(s):  
Kylah J. Hedding ◽  
Kevin Ripka
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Policy Agendas

Abstract This study explicates the concept of news media agendamelding. While only one-quarter of U.S. adults are on Twitter, it remains a popular platform among news media and political elites who often still set the public agenda for political discourse. Twitter provides insights into the issues that are at the top of the media and policy agendas, as well as how social media might influence the way journalists approach political issues. At the same time, there is concern about the influence of social media on political polarization. This study uses a specific set of influential Twitter users to examine one main question: Were there differences between right, left, and center political media reactions during the 2016 presidential debates? This study provides further evidence that there is, in fact, a conservative political Twitter media agenda that exists separately from liberal or nonpartisan media outlets.

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