Polarization and trust in the evolution of vaccine discourse on Twitter during COVID-19

Abstract

Trust in vaccination is eroding, and attitudes about vaccination have become more polarized. This is an observational study of Twitter analyzing the impact that COVID-19 had on vaccine discourse. We identify the actors, the language they use, how their language changed, and what can explain this change. First, we find that authors cluster into several large, interpretable groups, and that the discourse was greatly affected by American partisan politics. Over the course of our study, both Republicans and Democrats entered the vaccine conversation in large numbers, forming coalitions with Antivaxxers and public health organizations, respectively. After the pandemic was officially declared, the interactions between these groups increased. Second, we show that the moral and non-moral language used by the various communities converged in interesting and informative ways. Finally, vector autoregression analysis indicates that differential responses to public health measures are likely part of what drove this convergence. Taken together, our results suggest that polarization around vaccination discourse in the context of COVID-19 was ultimately driven by a trust-first dynamic of political engagement.

A comparative analysis of anti-vax discourse on twitter before and after COVID-19 onset

“…We identified several topics associated with vaccine hesitancy. These topics generally accord with those mentioned in prior research, such as safety/risk and politics, 9,20,21 efficacy/effectiveness, 20,21 governments/big companies, 9,21 immune system, 21 vaccine ingredients and religion, 9 conspiracy theories, 12 side-effects, 6,41 developmental disabilities, 1,43 nature is better and alternative treatments, 5,19 religion/ethics, 6,9 and civil liberties/freedom. 50…”

“…We identified several topics associated with vaccine hesitancy. These topics generally accord with those mentioned in prior research, such as safety/risk and politics, 9,20,21 efficacy/effectiveness, 20,21 governments/big companies, 9,21 immune system, 21 vaccine ingredients and religion, 9 conspiracy theories, 12 side-effects, 6,41 developmental disabilities, 1,43 nature is better and alternative treatments, 5,19 religion/ethics, 6,9 and civil liberties/ freedom. 50 During the COVID-19 Pandemic, of the anti-vaccine tweets concerning the topics "government and politics," "conspiracy theories," and "nature is better," the highest percentages related to COVID-19 vaccines when compared to flu and MMR vaccines.…”

“…Other studies only identified topics associated with vaccine hesitancy in the COVID-19 era. 9,[12][13][14]20,21 No studies have investigated changes in anti-vaccine topics during the pandemic and compared such changes across different vaccines; only one study has compared the shift in vaccine-hesitancy topics before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. 20 The present study used manual content analysis to identify the main anti-vaccine topics.…”

“…9,[12][13][14]20,21 No studies have investigated changes in anti-vaccine topics during the pandemic and compared such changes across different vaccines; only one study has compared the shift in vaccine-hesitancy topics before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. 20 The present study used manual content analysis to identify the main anti-vaccine topics. The current study extends the literature by analyzing COVID-19-related anti-vaccine discourse on social media over an extended period of time, and by comparing anti-vaccine topics and trends over time across different vaccines.…”

“…11 themes were identified: negative health impacts, pharmaceutical industry, policies and politics, vaccine ingredients, federal health authorities, research and clinical trials, religion, vaccine safety, disease prevalence, school, and family. Similarly, Quintana et al 20 analyzed Twitter data for the 75 days preceding and succeeding the declaration of the COVID-19 Pandemic, respectively, finding that vaccine-related discussions increased during the pandemic, that a small community of unorthodox users were ambivalent regarding vaccines, and that the moral and non-moral language used by a number of communities suggested a trust-first model of political engagement.…”