Vaccination talks on Twitter. Semantic social networks and public views from Greece

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. © 2022 World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society. All right reserved.

COVID-19 Goes on Twitter. Greek Conversations and Discussions

The COVID-19 disease emerged in late 2019 in China, is still rapidly spreading across the globe. Greece as many other countries enforced strict preventative policies. As a result, the daily life of people has changed and conversation turned online. The paper aims at investigating discussions around COVID-19 on Twitter in Greece. Twitter was selected as it played a significant role during the global health crisis. The presence of the keywords “Κορονοιος”, “κορονοιός”, “κορωνοιος”, “Κορωνοϊός”, “Κορωνοιος” in tweets over four periods of time were recorded. NodeXL Pro was used to identify word pairs, create semantic networks and analyze them. Main topics of conversation were extracted. ‘New cases’ are heavily discussed all of the times showing anxiety about community transmission of the virus. A shift on different views was also recorded. Before the lockdown people showed their concerns about stocking up foods and other essentials, followed by positive hashtags in the fight to save lives and encouraging each other and finally the debate over the deaths. The paper may help policy makers regarding societal issues during the pandemic. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.