Public Perception of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Social Media Qualitative Interpretative Approach (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Odame ◽  
Oluwabunmi Dada ◽  
Jordan Nelson ◽  
Ayorinde Ogunyiola ◽  
Jessica Ashley Haley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Program Implementation ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
Major Barrier ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Interpretative Approach

BACKGROUND Vaccine hesitancy remains a major barrier to the successful campaign of vaccine programs, including COVID-19, globally. Understanding themes in perceptions among populations regarding vaccine science can aid in improving program implementation as well as potentially reduce socially induced vaccine hesitancy. Social media has been shown to be an increasingly useful tool for rapidly understanding public perceptions regarding public health concerns including vaccine adoption. However, specific themes regarding vaccine perceptions immediately after the COVID-19 vaccine release to the public has yet to be investigated. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the perceptions surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine among United States, Brazil, and India Twitter users within weeks post vaccine release. METHODS We collected Twitter data through Meltwater software using keywords including coronavirus, vaccines, Pfizer-BioTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson/Jassen, AstraZeneca, Novavax, Sinovac-Biotech, Covaxin, Covishield, Sputnik, United States, Brazil, and India in our search query. These keywords were also combined in a Boolean search style (i.e. COVID-19 and Pfizer) to retrieve relevant social media posts on COVID-19 vaccination and vaccines. We used R software to remove usernames, weblinks and other personal information and then the Nvivo 12 statistical software to analyze tweets and draw meanings through a qualitative interpretative approach. RESULTS Three key themes related to vaccine perception among 2,858 Twitter posts in the United States, Brazil, and India emerged in our analysis. These themes were mistrust in vaccine science (91.5%), religious push backs (5.4%), and politics of vaccination (3.5%). Several subthemes also emerged from these Twitter data. CONCLUSIONS Identifying social implications of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy is vital in combating vaccine related misinformation as well as provision of accurate vaccine related public communications regarding vaccine acceptance among populations globally.

scholarly journals A Chronological and Geographical Analysis of Personal Reports of COVID-19 on Twitter

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ari Z. Klein ◽  
Arjun Magge ◽  
Karen O’Connor ◽  
Haitao Cai ◽  
Davy Weissenbacher ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Personal Information ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Media Mining ◽  
Learning Framework ◽  
Early Indication ◽  
Media Mining

ABSTRACTThe rapidly evolving outbreak of COVID-19 presents challenges for actively monitoring its spread. In this study, we assessed a social media mining approach for automatically analyzing the chronological and geographical distribution of users in the United States reporting personal information related to COVID-19 on Twitter. The results suggest that our natural language processing and machine learning framework could help provide an early indication of the spread of COVID-19.

scholarly journals Perceptions of the IQOS Heated Tobacco Product on Twitter in the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Canruo Zou ◽  
Xueting Wang ◽  
Zidian Xie ◽  
Dongmei Li
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Risks ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Enforcement Policy ◽  
Quit Smoking ◽  
Twitter Users

After the approval of the sales of IQOS in the United States market, discussions about IQOS have become active on social media. Twitter is a popular social media platform to understand public opinions toward IQOS. This study aims to explore public perceptions toward IQOS on Twitter in the United States. IQOS-related tweets from the United States between November 19, 2019, and August 24, 2020, were collected using a Twitter streaming application programming interface (API). Sentiment analysis was performed to determine whether the public perceptions toward IQOS were positive, neutral, or negative. In addition, topics discussed in these tweets were manually coded. From November 2019 to August 2020, the number of tweets discussing IQOS was relatively constant except for a peak starting from July 7, 2020, which lasted for 4 days. Among IQOS tweets with positive sentiments, the most popular topic is “IQOS is safer than cigarettes,” followed by “IQOS helps quit smoking.” Among tweets with negative sentiments, the most popular topic is “illegal marketing/selling to youth,” followed by “health risks/fire hazards.” “FDA approval/regulation” is the most popular topic for tweets with neutral sentiments. After the announcement of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) enforcement policy on unauthorized flavored e-cigarette products on January 2, 2020, the proportion of tweets with positive attitudes toward IQOS significantly increased, while the proportion of negative tweets significantly decreased. Our study showed that the public perception of IQOS in the United States became more positive after the FDA enforcement policy on flavored e-cigarettes. While many Twitter users thought IQOS is safer than cigarettes and helps quit smoking, some Twitter users complained about the illegal marketing and health risks of IQOS. These findings provide useful information on future tobacco regulations.

scholarly journals Monitoring Physical Activity Levels Using Twitter Data: Infodemiology Study (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Liu ◽  
Brian Chen ◽  
Alex Kuo
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Physical Activity ◽  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Activity Levels ◽  
County Level ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Public Health Organizations ◽  
Physical Activity Levels

BACKGROUND Social media technology such as Twitter allows users to share their thoughts, feelings, and opinions online. The growing body of social media data is becoming a central part of infodemiology research as these data can be combined with other public health datasets (eg, physical activity levels) to provide real-time monitoring of psychological and behavior outcomes that inform health behaviors. Currently, it is unclear whether Twitter data can be used to monitor physical activity levels. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to establish the feasibility of using Twitter data to monitor physical activity levels by assessing whether the frequency and sentiment of physical activity–related tweets were associated with physical activity levels across the United States. METHODS Tweets were collected from Twitter’s application programming interface (API) between January 10, 2017 and January 2, 2018. We used Twitter's garden hose method of collecting tweets, which provided a random sample of approximately 1% of all tweets with location metadata falling within the United States. Geotagged tweets were filtered. A list of physical activity–related hashtags was collected and used to further classify these geolocated tweets. Twitter data were merged with physical activity data collected as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Multiple linear regression models were fit to assess the relationship between physical activity–related tweets and physical activity levels by county while controlling for population and socioeconomic status measures. RESULTS During the study period, 442,959,789 unique tweets were collected, of which 64,005,336 (14.44%) were geotagged with latitude and longitude coordinates. Aggregated data were obtained for a total of 3138 counties in the United States. The mean county-level percentage of physically active individuals was 74.05% (SD 5.2) and 75.30% (SD 4.96) after adjusting for age. The model showed that the percentage of physical activity–related tweets was significantly associated with physical activity levels (beta=.11; SE 0.2; P<.001) and age-adjusted physical activity (beta=.10; SE 0.20; P<.001) on a county level while adjusting for both Gini index and education level. However, the overall explained variance of the model was low (R2=.11). The sentiment of the physical activity–related tweets was not a significant predictor of physical activity level and age-adjusted physical activity on a county level after including the Gini index and education level in the model (P>.05). CONCLUSIONS Social media data may be a valuable tool for public health organizations to monitor physical activity levels, as it can overcome the time lag in the reporting of physical activity epidemiology data faced by traditional research methods (eg, surveys and observational studies). Consequently, this tool may have the potential to help public health organizations better mobilize and target physical activity interventions.

scholarly journals Content-based features predict social media influence operations

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (30) ◽  
pp. eabb5824 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meysam Alizadeh ◽  
Jacob N. Shapiro ◽  
Cody Buntain ◽  
Joshua A. Tucker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Machine Learning ◽  
Social Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Monthly Basis ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
Random Samples ◽  
Machine Learning Approach

We study how easy it is to distinguish influence operations from organic social media activity by assessing the performance of a platform-agnostic machine learning approach. Our method uses public activity to detect content that is part of coordinated influence operations based on human-interpretable features derived solely from content. We test this method on publicly available Twitter data on Chinese, Russian, and Venezuelan troll activity targeting the United States, as well as the Reddit dataset of Russian influence efforts. To assess how well content-based features distinguish these influence operations from random samples of general and political American users, we train and test classifiers on a monthly basis for each campaign across five prediction tasks. Content-based features perform well across period, country, platform, and prediction task. Industrialized production of influence campaign content leaves a distinctive signal in user-generated content that allows tracking of campaigns from month to month and across different accounts.

A survey of Instagram users with asthma to evaluate the acceptability of a planned clinical trial intervention (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry Spitzer ◽  
Brent Heineman ◽  
Marcella Jewell ◽  
Michael Moran ◽  
Peter Lindenauer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
College Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Healthy Behaviors ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Hispanic White

BACKGROUND Asthma is a chronic lung disease that affects nearly 25 million individuals in the United States. There is a need for more research into the potential for health care providers to leverage existing social media platforms to improve healthy behaviors and support individuals living with chronic health conditions. OBJECTIVE In this study, we assess the willingness of Instagram users with poorly controlled asthma to participate in a pilot study that uses Instagram as a means of providing social and informational support. In addition, we explore the potential for adapting photovoice and digital storytelling to social media. METHODS A survey study of Instagram users living with asthma in the United States, between the ages of 18 to 40. RESULTS Over 3 weeks of recruitment, 457 individuals completed the pre-survey screener; 347 were excluded. Of the 110 people who were eligible and agreed to participate in the study, 82 completed the study survey. Respondents mean age was 21(SD = 5.3). Respondents were 56% female (n=46), 65% (n=53) non-Hispanic white, and 72% (n=59) had at least some college education. The majority of respondents (n = 66, 81%) indicated that they would be willing to participate in the study. CONCLUSIONS Among young-adult Instagram users with asthma there is substantial interest in participating in a study that uses Instagram to connect participants with peers and a health coach in order to share information about self-management of asthma and build social connection.

Lawyers as Activists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf ◽  
Michael S. Chu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Court Action ◽  
The Government ◽  
Trump Administration

Lawyers played a key role in challenging the Trump administration’s Travel Ban on entry into the United States of nationals from various majority-Muslim nations. Responding to calls from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which were amplified by social media, lawyers responded to the Travel Ban’s chaotic rollout by providing assistance to foreign travelers at airports. Their efforts led to initial court victories, which in turn led the government to soften the Ban somewhat in two superseding executive actions. The lawyers’ work also contributed to the broader resistance to the Trump administration by dramatizing its bigotry, callousness, cruelty, and lawlessness. The efficacy of the lawyers’ resistance to the Travel Ban shows that, contrary to strong claims about the limits of court action, litigation can promote social change. General lessons about lawyer activism in ordinary times are difficult to draw, however, because of the extraordinary threat Trump poses to civil rights and the rule of law.

scholarly journals Stand against anti-Asian racial discrimination during COVID-19: A call for action

2020 ◽  
pp. 002087282097061
Author(s):  
Qin Gao ◽  
Xiaofang Liu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Negative Impacts

Racial discrimination against people of Chinese and other Asian ethnicities has risen sharply in number and severity globally amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This rise has been especially rapid and severe in the United States, fueled by xenophobic political rhetoric and racist language on social media. It has endangered the lives of many Asian Americans and is likely to have long-term negative impacts on the economic, social, physical, and psychological well-being of Asian Americans. This essay reviews the prevalence and consequences of anti-Asian racial discrimination during COVID-19 and calls for actions in practice, policy, and research to stand against it.

“The Best Damn Representation of Islam:” Muslims, Gender, Social Media, and Islamophobia in the United States

CyberOrient ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-30
Author(s):  
Stine Eckert ◽  
Sydney O'Shay Wallace ◽  
Jade Metzger-Riftkin ◽  
Sean Kolhoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
The United States

scholarly journals Military Coup in Burma Draws International Condemnation and Pressure

2021 ◽  
Vol 115 (3) ◽  
pp. 558-567
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Coup ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
One Year ◽  
Head Of Government ◽  
The Military

On February 1, 2021, the military in Burma overthrew the democratically elected government, declared a one-year state of emergency, and installed Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as the head of government. Since the coup, the military has cracked down on protestors, killing over 800 people and detaining many more. Numerous countries and international organizations, including the United States and the United Nations, have condemned the coup and ensuing violence and called for the restoration of a democratic government. The United States and other countries have also imposed rigorous sanctions on the Burmese military, its officials and affiliated corporations, and social media companies have imposed content restrictions to prevent the spread of pro-military propaganda.

scholarly journals Moving Away from Category Exclusivity Deals to Sponsorship Activation Platforms: The Case of the Ryder Cup

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1151
Author(s):  
Yunchao Bai ◽  
Brian H. Yim ◽  
John Breedlove ◽  
James J. Zhang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Financial Services ◽  
Case Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Brand Awareness ◽  
Inquiry Process ◽  
Standard Life ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Collaborative Efforts

As a biennial event, the Ryder Cup is a men’s golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. Ernst & Young (EY) and Standard Life Investments (SLI), who are in same business category (i.e., financial services), have served as official partners of the event in recent years. While the two firms are willing to move away from the traditional sponsorship practices of category exclusivity deals, both have been able to achieve significant success through their collaborative efforts in activating their sponsorships. This is a new, fascinating phenomenon in both sponsorship concept and practice. Through an exploratory inductive inquiry process, in this study we conduct a case analysis by examining the sponsorship activations of EY and SLI at the 2014 Ryder Cup event held in the UK. The findings demonstrate that social media plays an impactful role in the companies’ ability to engage target audiences. EY used the Ryder Cup captain as a brand ambassador, who embodied its sponsorship theme of leadership and teamwork. SLI focused on running advertising campaigns to build company image and increase brand awareness.

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