TY - GEN
T1 - Whose Agenda Is It Anyway? The Effect of Disinformation on COVID-19 Vaccination Hesitancy in the Netherlands
AU - Kadenko, Natalia I.
AU - van der Boon, J. M.
AU - van der Kaaij, J.
AU - Kobes, W. J.
AU - Mulder, A. T.
AU - Sonneveld, J. J.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - With the problem of disinformation becoming more apparent, one of the current topics for disinformation campaigns is the COVID-19 vaccine, which has broad implications for public health. This research was conducted to investigate a possible connection between the amount of vaccination-related disinformation and the willingness among the Dutch population to get vaccinated. The contribution of this research is 1) developing a tool-supported approach to identify words and bigrams used in alternative news outlet, 2) classifying disinformation-related vocabulary, 3) applying the approach that relates disinformation and vaccination willingness in the context of the COVID pandemic, highlighting its strengths and limitations. We conceptualised vaccination disinformation, expressed it in certain’trigger terms’ and plotted the popularity of those terms amongst Dutch Internet users over time, using Google Trends and Twitter data. Using a linear regression model, we combined this with vaccination willingness studies of June through December of 2020 to investigate a possible correlation. Our results, while not statistically significant, did point towards a negative relationship between disinformation spread and willingness to vaccinate. Further research, utilizing similar approach and additional available information on vaccination willingness, may provide more insight on disinformation spread and vaccination willingness across the world.
AB - With the problem of disinformation becoming more apparent, one of the current topics for disinformation campaigns is the COVID-19 vaccine, which has broad implications for public health. This research was conducted to investigate a possible connection between the amount of vaccination-related disinformation and the willingness among the Dutch population to get vaccinated. The contribution of this research is 1) developing a tool-supported approach to identify words and bigrams used in alternative news outlet, 2) classifying disinformation-related vocabulary, 3) applying the approach that relates disinformation and vaccination willingness in the context of the COVID pandemic, highlighting its strengths and limitations. We conceptualised vaccination disinformation, expressed it in certain’trigger terms’ and plotted the popularity of those terms amongst Dutch Internet users over time, using Google Trends and Twitter data. Using a linear regression model, we combined this with vaccination willingness studies of June through December of 2020 to investigate a possible correlation. Our results, while not statistically significant, did point towards a negative relationship between disinformation spread and willingness to vaccinate. Further research, utilizing similar approach and additional available information on vaccination willingness, may provide more insight on disinformation spread and vaccination willingness across the world.
KW - Disinformation
KW - Social media
KW - Vaccine hesitancy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85115240688&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-82824-0_5
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-82824-0_5
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85115240688
SN - 9783030828233
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 55
EP - 65
BT - Electronic Participation - 13th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, ePart 2021, Proceedings
A2 - Edelmann, Noella
A2 - Csáki, Csaba
A2 - Hofmann, Sara
A2 - Lampoltshammer, Thomas J.
A2 - Alcaide Muñoz, Laura
A2 - Parycek, Peter
A2 - Schwabe, Gerhard
A2 - Tambouris, Efthimios
PB - Springer
T2 - 13th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2021
Y2 - 7 September 2021 through 9 September 2021
ER -