Temporal and textual analysis of social media on collective discourses during the Zika virus pandemic.

Publisher: BioMed Central Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 100968562 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1471-2458 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 14712458 NLM ISO Abbreviation: BMC Public Health Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: London : BioMed Central, [2001-

Pandemics*; Disease Outbreaks/*statistics & numerical data ; Health Communication/*methods ; Health Communication/*trends ; Mass Media/*trends ; Social Media/*trends ; Zika Virus Infection/*epidemiology; Humans ; Mass Media/statistics & numerical data ; Singapore/epidemiology ; Social Media/statistics & numerical data

Background: While existing studies have investigated the role of social media on health-related communication, little is known about the potential differences between different users groups on different social media platforms in responses to a health event. This study sets out to explore the online discourse of governmental authorities and the public in Singapore during the recent Zika pandemic in 2016.
Methods: Social media data were extracted from Facebook and Twitter using retroactive keyword sourcing of the word "Zika" to search for posts and a location filter of "Singapore". Government posts, public posts, and replies to these original posts were included in the temporal and textual analysis.
Results: Overall, Facebook contained more government and individual content whereas Twitter had more content from news media accounts. Though the relative volume of Zika content from different data sources paralleled the peaks and troughs of Zika activities across time, discourses from different data sources differed in their temporal patterns, such that the public discourse died down faster than the government discourse after the outbreak was declared. In addition, the content of discourses differed among data sources. While government discourse included factual information of the disease, public discourse contained more elements of care such as worry about the risks to pregnant women, and elements of community such as well-wishes to each other.
Conclusions: Our study demonstrates the temporal and content differences between user groups and social media platforms in social media conversations during the Zika pandemic. It suggests that future research should examine the collective discourse of a health event by investigating social media discourses within varied sources rather than focusing on a singular social media platform and by one particular type of users.

J Med Internet Res. 2013 Aug 19;15(8):e177. (PMID: 23958635)
Am J Infect Control. 2018 May;46(5):549-557. (PMID: 29306490)
JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2016 Jan 04;2(1):e1. (PMID: 27227144)
J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2017 Nov 1;24(6):1155-1159. (PMID: 28449047)
J Health Commun. 2005 Jan-Feb;10(1):43-55. (PMID: 15764443)
Perspect Public Health. 2014 Jul;134(4):225-30. (PMID: 24990140)
Am J Infect Control. 2017 Mar 1;45(3):301-302. (PMID: 27776823)
Am J Infect Control. 2016 Dec 1;44(12):1709-1711. (PMID: 27544795)
JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2017 Apr 20;3(2):e22. (PMID: 28428164)
PLoS One. 2014 Oct 22;9(10):e109583. (PMID: 25337815)
BMJ Glob Health. 2017 Aug 15;2(3):e000296. (PMID: 29082006)
Health Promot Pract. 2008 Oct;9(4):338-43. (PMID: 18936268)
Vaccine. 2016 Jun 24;34(30):3441-2. (PMID: 27216759)
Am J Infect Control. 2016 Dec 1;44(12):1700-1702. (PMID: 27566874)
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018 Sep 10;15(9):. (PMID: 30201929)
J Med Internet Res. 2013 Apr 23;15(4):e85. (PMID: 23615206)
Infect Dis Poverty. 2015 Dec 10;4:54. (PMID: 26654247)

NMRC/ZRRF/0004/2016 Singapore Ministry of Health's National Medical Research Council

Keywords: Facebook; Health communication; Public health; Social media; Twitter; Zika

Date Created: 20200531 Date Completed: 20201026 Latest Revision: 20201026

20221213

PMC7257143

10.1186/s12889-020-08923-y

32471495