WSEAS Transactions on Information Science and Applications
Print ISSN: 1790-0832, E-ISSN: 2224-3402
Volume 19, 2022
Vaccination Talks on Twitter. Semantic Social Networks and Public Views From Greece
Authors: ,
Abstract: Social media are increasingly used as a source of health information. Opinions expressed on social media, including Twitter, may contribute to opinion formation and impact positively or negatively the vaccination decision-making process. The paper creates networks of Greek users that talk about vaccination on Twitter, during the last quarter of 2021 and analyzes their structure and grouping. Furthermore, some content analysis is also produced by creating networks of words found within tweets. The main purpose is to locate and present the Greek public views on COVID-19 vaccination. Results show that the network of Greek users may be considered as fragmented but by all means not polarized between two different opinions. Anti-vaccination ideas were clearly present during the first period of our study but were rapidly diminished in the following months, maybe due to a large number of deaths and the advent of the Omicron strain. The persisting large percentage of the population refusing to vaccinate may be expressed in other social media platforms.
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Pages: 44-53
DOI: 10.37394/23209.2022.19.5