Alberta Social Media Data Correlated to Covid

Alberta Social Media Data Correlated to Covid

A great deal of recent academic literature and research has focused on patterns of debate on social media, and most recently, the narratives which have contributed to Covid-19 denialism and vaccine hesitancy. Boucher et al. (2021) use social network analysis and unsupervised machine learning in this infodemiology study to globally characterize Tweets about vaccine hesitancy, evaluating attitudes and behaviours that contribute to Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy. This data-driven study’s objective is to “evaluate societal attitudes, communication trends, and barriers to Covid-19 vaccine uptake through social media content analysis to inform communication strategies promoting vaccine acceptance (Boucher et al., 2021, p. 1) and puts into context how government communication can inform behaviours and facilitate behavioural change.

This study examines the attitudes on vaccines that are driven by social media, specifically Facebook, to better understand the “current patterns of communication that characterize the immunization debate on social media platforms” (p. 2). They hypothesize this data to be of global importance in developing targeted Covid-19 vaccine communication and intervention strategies on Twitter (p. 3). The authors intend to provide data that will inform successful public messaging for improved Covid-19 vaccine uptake. They emphasize “Rather than just trying to enhance knowledge, a different approach to overcoming vaccine hesitancy for Covid-19 may be to focus on changing personal attitudes” (p. 2). To that end, this study provides data that can enable governments and institutions to devise targeted communication strategies that promote Covid-19 vaccine acceptance.

Boucher et al. (2021) collected tweets published in English and French between Nov. 19 and 26, 2020, just after the announcement of initial Covid-19 vaccine trials and used Social Network Analysis (SNA) to identify clusters expressing mistrust of the vaccine. Subsequent unsupervised machine learning was utilized to identify the main themes of vaccine hesitancy. The words “Covid” and “vacc” or “vax” or “immu” were collected through Twitter content and hashtags (p. 3). “In total, 636,516 tweets were collected from 428,535 accounts for an average of 79,564 tweets per day” (p.4), which found the largest cluster, 49.4%, connected to vaccine acceptance points of view, and 23.4% expressing vaccine hesitancy. 18.4% were English language Tweets originating mostly from the U.S., the U.K., and Canada and “gravitated around accounts of prominent anti-vaccine physicians and organizations, right wing activists … and some alternative news organizations” (p. 4). Further examination of the narratives embedded in this data provides insight into what drives vaccine-hesitant attitudes and includes vaccine safety and efficacy, mistrust of institutions, and concern for personal freedom. “A large percentage of such Tweets (31.2%) expressed some criticism of the government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, especially decisions to curb individual freedom” (p. 5). These results suggest trust in institutions is a key determinant of vaccine hesitancy (p. 5). Trust in government, which is mandated with vaccine development, approvals, and delivery, is critical to effective Covid-19 vaccination uptakes and management of the pandemic. Boucher et al. (2021) conclude the themes identified as being central to the vaccine-hesitant conversations on social media are driven by concerns around safety, efficacy, freedom, and mistrust in institutions (p. 8).

Building trust in institutions is vital to the creation of communication models that target vaccine hesitancy and have the potential to change attitudes and behaviours. This study frames attitudes around the hesitancy debate and underlines the drivers of such conversations, which informs our research as we examine how Alberta’s institutional messaging has contributed to vaccine hesitancy through an inadequate communication strategy. Social media narratives specific to Alberta align with the global attitudes investigated by Boucher et. al. These understandings are valuable to the creation of strategically informed public health communications with the potential to encourage increased vaccine uptake in Alberta, and successful management of the Covid-19 pandemic.