What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of Comments
Social media allow anti-vaxxers to quickly spread misinformation and false statements. This situation may lead to an increase in vaccine hesitancy. We wanted to characterize what arguments against COVID-19 vaccines run on Facebook in Poland. We analyzed Facebook comments related to the five events o...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-05-01
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| Series: | Vaccines |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/5/481 |
| _version_ | 1797534793477390336 |
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| author | Dominik Wawrzuta Mariusz Jaworski Joanna Gotlib Mariusz Panczyk |
| author_facet | Dominik Wawrzuta Mariusz Jaworski Joanna Gotlib Mariusz Panczyk |
| author_sort | Dominik Wawrzuta |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Social media allow anti-vaxxers to quickly spread misinformation and false statements. This situation may lead to an increase in vaccine hesitancy. We wanted to characterize what arguments against COVID-19 vaccines run on Facebook in Poland. We analyzed Facebook comments related to the five events of the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines—announcements of the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech (09.11.2020), Moderna (16.11.2020), and AstraZeneca (23.11.2020) vaccines, registration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the European Medicines Agency (21.12.2020), and the first vaccination in Poland (27.12.2020). We collected the comments from fanpages of the biggest Polish media and then established their main anti-vaccine themes. We found that the negative arguments about COVID-19 vaccines can be divided into 12 categories. Seven of them are universal and also apply to other vaccines but five are new and COVID-19’ specific. The frequency of arguments from a given category varied over time. We also noticed that, while the comments were mostly negative, the reactions were positive. Created codebook of anti-vaccine COVID-19 arguments can be used to monitor the attitude of society towards COVID-19 vaccines. Real-time monitoring of social media is important because the popularity of certain arguments on Facebook changes rapidly over time. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T11:35:32Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-50bc0206d27c42329b2396f0177d6f4d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-393X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T11:35:32Z |
| publishDate | 2021-05-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Vaccines |
| spelling | doaj.art-50bc0206d27c42329b2396f0177d6f4d2023-11-21T18:55:55ZengMDPI AGVaccines2076-393X2021-05-019548110.3390/vaccines9050481What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of CommentsDominik Wawrzuta0Mariusz Jaworski1Joanna Gotlib2Mariusz Panczyk3Department of Education and Research in Health Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, 02-091 Warsaw, PolandDepartment of Education and Research in Health Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, 02-091 Warsaw, PolandDepartment of Education and Research in Health Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, 02-091 Warsaw, PolandDepartment of Education and Research in Health Sciences, Medical University of Warsaw, 02-091 Warsaw, PolandSocial media allow anti-vaxxers to quickly spread misinformation and false statements. This situation may lead to an increase in vaccine hesitancy. We wanted to characterize what arguments against COVID-19 vaccines run on Facebook in Poland. We analyzed Facebook comments related to the five events of the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines—announcements of the efficacy of the Pfizer-BioNTech (09.11.2020), Moderna (16.11.2020), and AstraZeneca (23.11.2020) vaccines, registration of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the European Medicines Agency (21.12.2020), and the first vaccination in Poland (27.12.2020). We collected the comments from fanpages of the biggest Polish media and then established their main anti-vaccine themes. We found that the negative arguments about COVID-19 vaccines can be divided into 12 categories. Seven of them are universal and also apply to other vaccines but five are new and COVID-19’ specific. The frequency of arguments from a given category varied over time. We also noticed that, while the comments were mostly negative, the reactions were positive. Created codebook of anti-vaccine COVID-19 arguments can be used to monitor the attitude of society towards COVID-19 vaccines. Real-time monitoring of social media is important because the popularity of certain arguments on Facebook changes rapidly over time.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/5/481Facebookvaccine hesitancyvaccineCOVID-19infodemiology |
| spellingShingle | Dominik Wawrzuta Mariusz Jaworski Joanna Gotlib Mariusz Panczyk What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of Comments Vaccines vaccine hesitancy vaccine COVID-19 infodemiology |
| title | What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of Comments |
| title_full | What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of Comments |
| title_fullStr | What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of Comments |
| title_full_unstemmed | What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of Comments |
| title_short | What Arguments against COVID-19 Vaccines Run on Facebook in Poland: Content Analysis of Comments |
| title_sort | what arguments against covid 19 vaccines run on facebook in poland content analysis of comments |
| topic | Facebook vaccine hesitancy vaccine COVID-19 infodemiology |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/9/5/481 |
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