scholarly journals Characterization of Vaccine Tweets During the Early Stage of the COVID-19 Outbreak in the United States: Topic Modeling Analysis

10.2196/25636 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. e25636
Author(s):  
Li Crystal Jiang ◽  
Tsz Hang Chu ◽  
Mengru Sun
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Public Concerns

Background During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, developing safe and effective coronavirus vaccines was considered critical to arresting the spread of the disease. News and social media discussions have extensively covered the issue of coronavirus vaccines, with a mixture of vaccine advocacies, concerns, and oppositions. Objective This study aimed to uncover the emerging themes in Twitter users’ perceptions and attitudes toward vaccines during the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods This study employed topic modeling to analyze tweets related to coronavirus vaccines at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States (February 21 to March 20, 2020). We created a predefined query (eg, “COVID” AND “vaccine”) to extract the tweet text and metadata (number of followers of the Twitter account and engagement metrics based on likes, comments, and retweeting) from the Meltwater database. After preprocessing the data, we tested Latent Dirichlet Allocation models to identify topics associated with these tweets. The model specifying 20 topics provided the best overall coherence, and each topic was interpreted based on its top associated terms. Results In total, we analyzed 100,209 tweets containing keywords related to coronavirus and vaccines. The 20 topics were further collapsed based on shared similarities, thereby generating 7 major themes. Our analysis characterized 26.3% (26,234/100,209) of the tweets as News Related to Coronavirus and Vaccine Development, 25.4% (25,425/100,209) as General Discussion and Seeking of Information on Coronavirus, 12.9% (12,882/100,209) as Financial Concerns, 12.7% (12,696/100,209) as Venting Negative Emotions, 9.9% (9908/100,209) as Prayers and Calls for Positivity, 8.1% (8155/100,209) as Efficacy of Vaccine and Treatment, and 4.9% (4909/100,209) as Conspiracies about Coronavirus and Its Vaccines. Different themes demonstrated some changes over time, mostly in close association with news or events related to vaccine developments. Twitter users who discussed conspiracy theories, the efficacy of vaccines and treatments, and financial concerns had more followers than those focused on other vaccine themes. The engagement level—the extent to which a tweet being retweeted, quoted, liked, or replied by other users—was similar among different themes, but tweets venting negative emotions yielded the lowest engagement. Conclusions This study enriches our understanding of public concerns over new vaccines or vaccine development at early stages of the outbreak, bearing implications for influencing vaccine attitudes and guiding public health efforts to cope with infectious disease outbreaks in the future. This study concluded that public concerns centered on general policy issues related to coronavirus vaccines and that the discussions were considerably mixed with political views when vaccines were not made available. Only a small proportion of tweets focused on conspiracy theories, but these tweets demonstrated high engagement levels and were often contributed by Twitter users with more influence.

Characterizing Twitter Discussions About Coronavirus Vaccines in the United States: A Topic Modelling Analysis (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
LI Crystal Jiang ◽  
Tsz Hang Chu ◽  
Mengru Sun
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Topic Model ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Topic Modelling ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Key Opinion Leaders

BACKGROUND A coronavirus vaccine that works is considered a game-changer in the battle against the unprecedented pandemic. News and social media discussions have been extensively covered the issue of coronavirus vaccines, with a mixture of advocacies, concerns, rumors and conspiracy theories. OBJECTIVE This study aims to uncover the emerging themes in social media discussions regarding the potential coronavirus vaccines. METHODS This study employ topic modelling to analyze Tweets related to coronavirus vaccines at the start of the COVID-19 in the United States (February 21 to March 20, 2020). We created a predefined query (e.g., "COVID" AND "vaccine") to extract the tweet text and metadata (number of followers of the Twitter account and engagement metrics based on likes, comments and retweeting) from the Meltwater database. After pre-processing the data, we tested Latent Dirichlet Allocation models with different solutions for identifying topics associated with tweets. The topic model with 20 topics provided the best topic coherence, and each topic was interpreted based on its top associated terms. RESULTS In total, we analyzed 100,209 tweets related to coronavirus vaccines. The 20 topics were further collapsed based on their similarities, resulting in seven big themes. Our analysis characterized 26.3% of the tweets as News Related to Coronavirus and Vaccine Development, 25.4% as General Discussion and Information Seeking of Coronavirus, 12.9% as Financial Concerns, 12.7% as Venting Negative Emotions, 9.9% as Prayers and Call for Positivity, 8.1 as Efficacy of Vaccine and Treatment and 4.9% as Conspiracies. Different themes demonstrated some changes over time, mostly in a close association with news or events related to the progress of vaccine developments. Users with a large number of followers (also known as key opinion leaders) preferred to discuss the themes of conspiracy theories, efficacy of vaccines and treatments, and financial concerns over other themes. The engagement levels of different themes were similar except for venting negative emotions. CONCLUSIONS This study concluded that financial concerns emerged as one important concern among the public regarding the potential coronavirus vaccines. The discussions of vaccines considerably mixed with political discussions, which suggests that the issue of coronavirus vaccines is politicized in the US. Only a small proportion of tweets were concerned about conspiracy theories, but their impact can be amplified by key opinion leaders and its relatively higher engagement level with the audiences. CLINICALTRIAL N.A.

scholarly journals The COVID-19 Pandemic and Mental Health Concerns on Twitter in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Senqi Zhang ◽  
Li Sun ◽  
Daiwei Zhang ◽  
Pin Li ◽  
Yue Liu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
The United States ◽  
Allocation Model ◽  
Health Concerns ◽  
Demographic Composition ◽  
The Us ◽  
Mental Health Concerns ◽  
Twitter Users

AbstractBackgroundMental health illness is a growing problem in recent years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health concerns (such as fear and loneliness) have been actively discussed on social media.ObjectiveIn this study, we aim to examine mental health discussions on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and infer the demographic composition of Twitter users who had mental health concerns.MethodsCOVID-19 related tweets from March 5th, 2020 to January 31st, 2021 were collected through Twitter streaming API using COVID-19 related keywords (e.g., “corona”, “covid19”, “covid”). By further filtering using mental health keywords (e.g., “depress”, “failure”, “hopeless”), we extracted mental health-related tweets from the US. Topic modeling using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation model was conducted to monitor users’ discussions surrounding mental health concerns. Demographic inference using deep learning algorithms (including Face++ and Ethnicolr) was performed to infer the demographic composition of Twitter users who had mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.ResultsWe observed a positive correlation between mental health concerns on Twitter and the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Topic modeling showed that “stay-at-home”, “death poll” and “politics and policy” were the most popular topics in COVID-19 mental health tweets. Among Twitter users who had mental health concerns during the pandemic, Males, White, and 30-49 age group people were more likely to express mental health concerns. In addition, Twitter users from the east and west coast had more mental health concerns.ConclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on mental health concerns on Twitter in the US. Certain groups of people (such as Males, White) were more likely to have mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

scholarly journals Public Reactions towards the COVID-19 Pandemic on Twitter in the United Kingdom and the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Canruo Zou ◽  
Xueting Wang ◽  
Zidian Xie ◽  
Dongmei Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
Twitter Users

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread globally since December 2019. Twitter is a popular social media platform with active discussions about the COVID-19 pandemic. The public reactions on Twitter about the COVID-19 pandemic in different countries have not been studied. This study aims to compare the public reactions towards the COVID-19 pandemic between the United Kingdom and the United States from March 6, 2020 to April 2, 2020. Data: The numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom and the United States were obtained from the 1Point3Acres website. Twitter data were collected using COVID-19 related keywords from March 6, 2020 to April 2, 2020. Methods: Temporal analyses were performed on COVID-19 related Twitter posts (tweets) during the study period to show daily trends and hourly trends. The sentiment scores of the tweets on COVID-19 were analyzed and associated with the policy announcements and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. Topic modeling was conducted to identify related topics discussed with COVID-19 in the United Kingdom and the United States. Results: The number of daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom was significantly lower than that in the United States during our study period. There were 3,556,442 COVID-19 tweets in the United Kingdom and 16,280,065 tweets in the United States during the study period. The number of COVID-19 tweets per 10,000 Twitter users in the United Kingdom was lower than that in the United States. The sentiment scores of COVID-19 tweets in the United Kingdom were less negative than those in the United States. The topics discussed in COVID-19 tweets in the United Kingdom were mostly about the gratitude to government and health workers, while the topics in the United States were mostly about the global COVID-19 pandemic situation. Conclusion: Our study showed correlations between the public reactions towards the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter and the confirmed COVID-19 cases as well as the policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom and the United States.

“I’m Not going to the f***ing White House”: Twitter Users React to Donald Trump and Megan Rapinoe

2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952095077
Author(s):  
Evan L. Frederick ◽  
Ann Pegoraro ◽  
Samuel Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Inductive Analysis

When asked if she would go to the White House if invited, Megan Rapinoe stated, “I’m not going to the fucking White House.” The next morning, President Donald Trump posted a series of tweets in which he criticized Rapinoe’s statements. In his tweets, Trump introduced issues around race in the United States and brought forth his own notion of nationalism. The purpose of this study was to conduct an analysis of users’ tweets to determine how individuals employed Twitter to craft a narrative and discuss the ongoing Rapinoe and Trump feud within and outside the bounds of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and nationalism. An inductive analysis of 16,137 users’ tweets revealed three primary themes: a) Refuse, Refute, & Redirect Racist Rhetoric b) Stand Up vs. Know your Rights, and c) #ShutUpAndBeALeader. Based on the findings of this study, it appears that the dialogue regarding racism in the United States is quickly evolving. Instead of reciting the same refrain (i.e., racism no longer exists and systematic racism is constructed by Black people) seen in previous works, individuals in the current dataset refuted those talking points and clearly labeled the President as a racist. Additionally, though discussions of nationalism were evident in this dataset, the Stand Up vs. Know Your Rights theme was on the periphery in comparison to discussions of race. Perhaps, this indicates that some have grown tired of Trump utilizing nationalism as a means to stoke racism.

scholarly journals A Study of the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Experience of Back Pain Reported on Twitter® in the United States: A Natural Language Processing Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 4543
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Fiok ◽  
Waldemar Karwowski ◽  
Edgar Gutierrez ◽  
Maham Saeidi ◽  
Awad M. Aljuaid ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Back Pain ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Twitter Users

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lifestyles, habits, and daily routine. Some of the impacts of COVID-19 have been widely reported already. However, many effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are still to be discovered. The main objective of this study was to assess the changes in the frequency of reported physical back pain complaints reported during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast to other published studies, we target the general population using Twitter as a data source. Specifically, we aim to investigate differences in the number of back pain complaints between the pre-pandemic and during the pandemic. A total of 53,234 and 78,559 tweets were analyzed for November 2019 and November 2020, respectively. Because Twitter users do not always complain explicitly when they tweet about the experience of back pain, we have designed an intelligent filter based on natural language processing (NLP) to automatically classify the examined tweets into the back pain complaining class and other tweets. Analysis of filtered tweets indicated an 84% increase in the back pain complaints reported in November 2020 compared to November 2019. These results might indicate significant changes in lifestyle during the COVID-19 pandemic, including restrictions in daily body movements and reduced exposure to routine physical exercise.

Engaging Your Feelings: Emotion Contagion and Public Engagement on Nonprofit Organizations’ Facebook Sites

2021 ◽  
pp. 089976402110573
Author(s):  
Zongchao Cathy Li ◽  
Yi Grace Ji ◽  
Weiting Tao ◽  
Zifei Fay Chen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Sentiment Analysis ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Diffusion Effect ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Emotion Contagion

This study investigated nonprofit organizations’ (NPOs) emotion-based content strategies on Facebook and publics’ engagement behaviors. More than 52,000 Facebook posts and corresponding comments were collected from the top 100 NPOs in the United States. The emotion-carrying status and valence of the messages were analyzed with computer-assisted sentiment analysis procedures. Results confirmed emotion-carrying posts and posts with negative emotions led to increased public engagement as indexed by the volumes of likes, shares, and comments. The presence of emotions and valence of the NPOs’ posts were also found to have a diffusion effect on user comments.

The Comparative Politics of Environmental Justice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kemi Fuentes-George
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Close Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Environmental Injustice ◽  
Environmental Advocacy

Although the terms “environmental justice” and “environmental racism” emerged due to race-based mobilization in the United States, justice is a constant feature of environmental struggles around the world. Pursuing social justice in environmental advocacy can be difficult, but case studies of activism in places including New Zealand, Mexico, Jamaica, Brazil, and the United States show that it is possible. Environmental injustice emerges when populations that are already politically and socioeconomically marginalized disproportionately bear the costs of environmental consumption, and they are often systematically excluded from the benefits of this consumption. Although different political systems vary in how they structure marginalization, this close association of social injustice with environmental injustice characterizes cases like fossil fuel extraction in industrialized countries and agricultural development in the Global South alike. While skeptics have argued that promoting environmentalism is counterproductive to social justice, because environmental regulations often constrain economic growth, combining the two can lead to more sustainable environmental practices.

‘Op proef doeltreffend gebleken, kunnen we spreken van een bereikt ideaal’

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-59
Author(s):  
Jacques Lemmink
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Dutch Version ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Religious Networks ◽  
Voting Machine

Abstract ‘Proved effective on trial, we can speak of an achieved ideal’ Abraham Kuyper and the mechanical voting machine, c. 1895-1905 During the latest presidential elections in the United States, unfounded conspiracy theories sprung up concerning alleged ballot box fraud by compromised voting machines. Although different voting machines had been used in the Netherlands since 1966, concerns over their reliability ended this in 2007. This article investigates the forgotten but ultimately failed attempt to introduce mechanical voting machines a century earlier. It focuses on the role played by prominent politician Abraham Kuyper, who personally visited the Standard Voting Machine Company in Rochester in 1898. The article illustrates how Kuyper’s transatlantic political and religious networks facilitated the voting machine’s transfer, rather than scientific connections. Paradoxically, the introduction of proportional representation in 1917 marked the end of tentative attempts to develop a Dutch version of the American mechanical voting machine. The implementation in the voting process turned out be too expensive, too early, and too complicated for the Dutch electoral system at the dawn of the twentieth century.

Tele-Audiology in the United States

2011 ◽  
pp. 693-702
Author(s):  
John Ribera
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Daily Clinical Practice ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Initial Research ◽  
Management Services

The incorporation of telehealth into the daily clinical practice of audiologists in the United States is in its early stages of development. Some initial research has been conducted in order to validate the use of telehealth technologies in providing hearing and balance evaluation and management services (Krumm, Huffman, Dick, & Klich, 2008; Krumm, Ribera, & Klich, 2007;Krumm, Ribera, & Schmiedge, 2005; Lancaster, Krumm, & Ribera, 2008). More research is needed. This chapter suggests possible applications using existing technology and explores the possibility of virtual audiology clinics nation-wide and internationally.

scholarly journals To Boldly Remember Where We Have Already Been

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 17-35
Author(s):  
Nathaniel L. Moir
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mass Production ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Private Partnership ◽  
Polio Virus ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
The Public ◽  
Polio Vaccine ◽  
Current Vaccine

Abstract This article revisits the Cutter Incident in the United States in April 1955 when mass-produced doses of polio vaccine containing insufficiently inactivated (killed) live polio virus were released to the U.S. public. The Cutter Incident also affected subsequent vaccine development and these lessons remain relevant in the international quest to create a rapidly developed vaccine for COVID-19. The Cutter Incident shows how things can go wrong when a vaccine is manufactured in haste and without adequate safety precautions during mass-production. In the article’s later section, liability without fault, among other consequences resulting from the incident, are also assessed in the context of current vaccine development through Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership funded by the U.S. government to develop a remedy for COVID-19.

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