Local chatter or international buzz? Language differences on posts about Zika research on Twitter and Facebook

Abstract

BackgroundWhen the Zika virus outbreak became a global health emergency in early 2016, the scientific community responded with an increased output of Zika-related research. This upsurge in research naturally made its way into academic journals along with editorials, news, and reports. However, it is not yet known how or whether these scholarly communications were distributed to the populations most affected by Zika.Methodology/Principal findingsTo understand how scientific outputs about Zika reached global and local audiences, we collected Tweets and Facebook posts that linked to Zika-related research in the first six months of 2016. Using a language detection algorithm, we found that up to 90% of Twitter and 76% of Facebook posts are in English. However, when none of the authors of the scholarly article are from English-speaking countries, posts on both social media are less likely to be in English. The effect is most pronounced on Facebook, where the likelihood of posting in English is between 11 and 16% lower when none of the authors are from English-speaking countries, as compared to when some or all are. Similarly, posts about papers written with a Brazilian author are 13% more likely to be in Portuguese on Facebook than when made on Twitter.Conclusions/SignificanceOur main conclusion is that scholarly communication on Twitter and Facebook of Zika-related research is dominated by English, despite Brazil being the epicenter of the Zika epidemic. This result suggests that scholarly findings about the Zika virus are unlikely to be distributed directly to relevant populations through these popular online mediums. Nevertheless, there are differences between platforms. Compared to Twitter, scholarly communication on Facebook is more likely to be in the language of an author’s country. The Zika outbreak provides a useful case-study for understanding how scientific outputs are communicated to relevant populations. Our results suggest that Facebook is a more effective channel than Twitter, if communication is desired to be in the native language of the affected country. Further research should explore how local media—such as governmental websites, newspapers and magazines, as well as television and radio—disseminate scholarly publication.

Solidarity, Vulnerability and Mistrust: How Context, Information and Government Affect the Lives of Women in Times of Zika

“…It has been reported that Public Information Officers who were monitoring social media felt better prepared for Zika and were more satisfied with their crisis management since social media facilitates the spread of both accurate and false information [37]. Understanding these media effects is essential to communicate public health information and engage different populations in the community [38]. Above all, the need to access social media to gain knowledge about the debilitating virus clearly demonstrates the lack of satisfaction with then available official information about Zika.…”

Por métricas alternativas mais relevantes para a América Latina

“…Por essa razão, o Altmetric coleta dados bastante incompletos no Facebook que dão a impressão de que a rede é pouco relevante para a atenção social de informações científicas, sendo vista, portanto, como de pouco valor por acadêmicos do mundo todo. A identificação de métodos alternativos, como a análise de artigos compartilhados em postagens públicas do API do Facebook (Enkhbayar; Alperin, 2018), traz algumas possibilidades interessantes de pesquisa futura.…”

“…Apesar de grande uso do Facebook por editores de revistas científicas brasileiras, como mencionado na seção anterior, há importantes limitações para o uso de dados dessa rede social para gerar dados altmétricos, sendo focalizado neste artigo o provedor Altmetric.com, mais usado e analisado entre especialistas em altmetria. Análise de Enkhbayar e Alperin (2018) sugere que os dados que o Altmetric.com captura do Facebook são inferiores à atividade que ocorre na rede social para compartilhar artigos científicos, como mostram dados coletados a partir do API do Facebook. É fato que a empresa britânica que produz esses indicadores alternativos, a Altmetric.com, apenas rastreia o compartilhamento de links de artigos científicos em postagens públicas de grupos ou instituições.…”

“…Outra limitação é o rastreamento de artigos de língua não inglesa, cuja cobertura tem desvantagem. Uma análise realizada com artigos sobre o Zika Vírus compartilhados no Twitter e Facebook buscou entender como um tema de relevância nacional e internacional, durante o primeiro semestre de 2016, quando a Zika foi considerada emergência internacional, foi compartilhado pela sociedade Shores;Alperin, 2018). O objetivo era analisar o idioma usado nas redes sociais para compartilhar artigos também em idiomas distintos.…”

Solidarity, Vulnerability and Mistrust: How Context, Information and Government Affect the Lives of Women in Times of Zika

“…It has been reported that Public Information Officers who were monitoring social media felt better prepared for Zika and were more satisfied with their crisis management since social media facilitates the spread of both accurate and false information [31]. Understanding these media effects is essential to communicate public health information and engage different populations in the community [32]. Above all, the need to access social media to gain knowledge about the debilitating virus clearly demonstrates the lack of satisfaction with then available official information about Zika.…”