Lehmann Birthe A, Ruiter Robert A C, Kok Gerjo
Department of Work & Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, P,O, box 616, 6200, MD Maastricht, The Netherlands.
BMC Public Health. 2013 Jun 5;13:547. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-547.
Information about influenza and the effectiveness of vaccination against influenza is largely available on the Internet, and may influence individual decision making about participation in future influenza vaccination rounds. E-health information has often been found to be inaccurate, or even to contradict Health Authority recommendations, especially when it concerns controversial topics.
By means of an online media monitoring programme, Dutch news sites and social media websites were scanned for the Dutch counterparts of the terms influenza, vaccination, vaccine and epidemic during February, March and April 2012. Data were processed with QSR NVivo 8.0 and analysed using a general inductive approach.
Three overarching themes were found in both media sources: (1) the (upcoming) influenza epidemic, (2) general information regarding the virus, its prevention and treatment, and (3) uncertainty and mistrust regarding influenza vaccination. Social media tended to report earlier on developments such as the occurrence of an influenza epidemic. The greatest difference was that in social media, influenza was not considered to be a serious disease, and more opposition to the flu shot was expressed in social media, as compared to news media.
News media and social media discussed the same topics regarding influenza, but differed in message tone. Whereas news media reports tended to be more objective and non-judgmental, social media more critically evaluated the harmfulness of influenza and the necessity of the flu shot. Media may influence decision making and behaviours of Internet users and may thereby influence the success of vaccination campaigns and recommendations made by health authorities. Social media may be more of a problem in this sense, since it is neither controlled nor censored. Future research should investigate the actual impact of Internet media on the influenza decision making process of its users.
有关流感及流感疫苗接种效果的信息在互联网上随处可得，这可能会影响个人对于未来参与流感疫苗接种轮次的决策。人们经常发现电子健康信息不准确，甚至与卫生当局的建议相矛盾，尤其是在涉及有争议的话题时。
通过在线媒体监测程序，在2012年2月、3月和4月期间对荷兰新闻网站和社交媒体网站扫描“流感”“疫苗接种”“疫苗”和“流行病”等术语的荷兰语对应词。数据使用QSR NVivo 8.0进行处理，并采用一般归纳法进行分析。
在两种媒体来源中都发现了三个总体主题：（1）（即将到来的）流感疫情，（2）关于病毒及其预防和治疗的一般信息，以及（3）对流感疫苗接种的不确定性和不信任。社交媒体往往更早报道流感疫情等事件的发展情况。最大的差异在于，在社交媒体中，流感不被视为一种严重疾病，并且与新闻媒体相比，社交媒体中表达了更多对流感疫苗接种的反对意见。
新闻媒体和社交媒体讨论了关于流感的相同话题，但在信息基调上有所不同。新闻媒体报道往往更客观且不带评判性，而社交媒体则更批判性地评估了流感的危害性和流感疫苗接种的必要性。媒体可能会影响互联网用户的决策和行为，从而可能影响疫苗接种活动的成效以及卫生当局的建议。从这个意义上说，社交媒体可能问题更大，因为它既不受控制也不被审查。未来的研究应该调查互联网媒体对其用户流感决策过程的实际影响。
