Of Stances, Themes, and Anomalies in COVID-19 Mask-Wearing Tweets
COVID-19 is an opportunity to study public acceptance of a “new” healthcare intervention, universal masking, which unlike vaccination, is mostly alien to the Anglosphere public despite being practiced in ages past. Using a collection of over two million tweets, we studied the w...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IEEE
2023-01-01
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| Series: | IEEE Access |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10192425/ |
| _version_ | 1797739742760009728 |
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| author | Jwen Fai Low Benjamin C. M. Fung Farkhund Iqbal |
| author_facet | Jwen Fai Low Benjamin C. M. Fung Farkhund Iqbal |
| author_sort | Jwen Fai Low |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | COVID-19 is an opportunity to study public acceptance of a “new” healthcare intervention, universal masking, which unlike vaccination, is mostly alien to the Anglosphere public despite being practiced in ages past. Using a collection of over two million tweets, we studied the ways in which proponents and opponents of masking vied for influence as well as the themes driving the discourse. Pro-mask tweets encouraging others to mask up dominated Twitter early in the pandemic though its continued dominance has been eroded by anti-mask tweets criticizing others for their masking behavior. Engagement, represented by the counts of likes, retweets, and replies, and controversiality and disagreeableness, represented by ratios of the aforementioned counts, favored pro-mask tweets initially but with anti-mask tweets slowly gaining ground. Additional analysis raised the possibility of the platform owners suppressing certain parts of the mask-wearing discussion. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T14:02:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-3004b4d574eb4bdaa6532a803f406db2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2169-3536 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T14:02:32Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | IEEE |
| record_format | Article |
| series | IEEE Access |
| spelling | doaj.art-3004b4d574eb4bdaa6532a803f406db22023-08-21T23:00:27ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362023-01-0111870098703310.1109/ACCESS.2023.329855710192425Of Stances, Themes, and Anomalies in COVID-19 Mask-Wearing TweetsJwen Fai Low0Benjamin C. M. Fung1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8423-2906Farkhund Iqbal2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9081-3598School of Information Studies, McGill University, Montreal, QC, CanadaSchool of Information Studies, McGill University, Montreal, QC, CanadaCollege of Technological Innovation, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesCOVID-19 is an opportunity to study public acceptance of a “new” healthcare intervention, universal masking, which unlike vaccination, is mostly alien to the Anglosphere public despite being practiced in ages past. Using a collection of over two million tweets, we studied the ways in which proponents and opponents of masking vied for influence as well as the themes driving the discourse. Pro-mask tweets encouraging others to mask up dominated Twitter early in the pandemic though its continued dominance has been eroded by anti-mask tweets criticizing others for their masking behavior. Engagement, represented by the counts of likes, retweets, and replies, and controversiality and disagreeableness, represented by ratios of the aforementioned counts, favored pro-mask tweets initially but with anti-mask tweets slowly gaining ground. Additional analysis raised the possibility of the platform owners suppressing certain parts of the mask-wearing discussion.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10192425/Social mediaTwittercensorshipinformation diffusionratiometricsstance classification |
| spellingShingle | Jwen Fai Low Benjamin C. M. Fung Farkhund Iqbal Of Stances, Themes, and Anomalies in COVID-19 Mask-Wearing Tweets IEEE Access Social media censorship information diffusion ratiometrics stance classification |
| title | Of Stances, Themes, and Anomalies in COVID-19 Mask-Wearing Tweets |
| title_full | Of Stances, Themes, and Anomalies in COVID-19 Mask-Wearing Tweets |
| title_fullStr | Of Stances, Themes, and Anomalies in COVID-19 Mask-Wearing Tweets |
| title_full_unstemmed | Of Stances, Themes, and Anomalies in COVID-19 Mask-Wearing Tweets |
| title_short | Of Stances, Themes, and Anomalies in COVID-19 Mask-Wearing Tweets |
| title_sort | of stances themes and anomalies in covid 19 mask wearing tweets |
| topic | Social media censorship information diffusion ratiometrics stance classification |
| url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10192425/ |
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