Fall Research Expo 2021

Misinformation about the COVID-19 Vaccine on Twitter

With the COVID-19 pandemic still ongoing, researchers have developed vaccines to protect society from severe cases of COVID-19 similar to when the pandemic first took place. Despite the seemingly new information and technology behind these vaccines, COVID-19 is part of a larger family of Coronaviruses which scientists have spent years studying which allowed them to produce such vaccines in what seems like short notice. Despite all the research behind Coronaviruses and COVID-19, many in society fear these vaccines to cause negative and sometimes extreme symptoms based on conspiracy theories and misinformation which has spread through social media. This project focused on observing healthcare worker COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the media, specifically on the Twitter platform. Our project’s goals were to determine potential correlation between misinformation about the Covid 19 vaccine in social media and how it relates to healthcare workers’ display of vaccine hesitancy. This type of information is especially important for our society as the world continues to face the Covid 19 pandemic and researchers work to find a solution that will help our society. No final conclusions have been made with the current results obtained as this project is still ongoing, but the current data collected can help us look at possible opinions healthcare workers are sharing on the media about the COVID-19 vaccine and form theories as to how these opinions can influence people who interact with this information.

 

 

PRESENTED BY
PURM - Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program
College of Arts & Sciences 2024
Advised By
Dr. Melanie Kornides
Assistant Professor of Nursing, ScD, MPH, APRN
Join Franchesca for a virtual discussion
PRESENTED BY
PURM - Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program
College of Arts & Sciences 2024
Advised By
Dr. Melanie Kornides
Assistant Professor of Nursing, ScD, MPH, APRN

Comments

It certainly is a significant issue that social media could potentially facilitate misinformation and without stringent moderation, a sizable proportion of the userbase could be misinformed. Have you considered other social media platforms, such as Facebook and TikTok, to compare the results regarding views of the COVID-19 vaccine?

Hi Franchesca, it was super interesting to listen to your presentation and look at your poster about such a relevant topic. Given that there is ongoing social turmoil within the US and across the world about COVID-19 vaccinations, I was surprised to see in your results just how many doctors and nurses on Twitter surveyed in your randomized data set were contributing to vaccine hesitancy.

Interesting topic! With some much information being available on the internet, it is hard to filter through what is true and what is false. Social media is designed to make you dive deeper into an area of interest, which can make it really easy to fall into a loop of misinformation. I would love to hear more about misinformation on other social media platforms as well.