Semantic Network Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccine Related Text from Reddit

ABSTRACT

Vaccinations are critical and effective in resolving the current pandemic. With the highly transmissible and deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19), a delay in acceptance, or refusal of vaccines despite the availability of vaccine services poses a significant public health threat. Moreover, vaccine-related hesitancy, mis/disinformation, and anti-vaccination discourse are hindering the rapid uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine. It is urgent to examine how anti-vaccine sentiment and behavior spread online to influence vaccine acceptance. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy diffusion networks in an online Reddit community within the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also sought to assess the anti-vaccine discourse evolution in language content and style. Overall, our study findings could help facilitate and promote efficient messaging strategies/campaigns to improve vaccination rates. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.