Engel-Rebitzer Eden, Stokes Daniel C, Meisel Zachary F, Purtle Jonathan, Doyle Rebecca, Buttenheim Alison M
Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA United States.
Center for Emergency Care Policy and Research Philadelphia, PA United States.
JMIR Infodemiology. 2022 Feb 18;2(1):e32372. doi: 10.2196/32372. eCollection 2022 Jan-Jun.
The COVID-19 era has been characterized by the politicization of health-related topics. This is especially concerning given evidence that politicized discussion of vaccination may contribute to vaccine hesitancy. No research, however, has examined the content and politicization of legislator communication with the public about vaccination during the COVID-19 era.
The aim of this study was to examine vaccine-related tweets produced by state and federal legislators during the COVID-19 era to (1) describe the content of vaccine-related tweets; (2) examine the differences in vaccine-related tweet content between Democrats and Republicans; and (3) quantify (and describe trends over time in) partisan differences in vaccine-related communication.
We abstracted all vaccine-related tweets produced by state and federal legislators between February 01, 2020, and December 11, 2020. We used latent Dirichlet allocation to define the tweet topics and used descriptive statistics to describe differences by party in the use of topics and changes in political polarization over time.
We included 14,519 tweets generated by 1463 state legislators and 521 federal legislators. Republicans were more likely to use words (eg, "record time," "launched," and "innovation") and topics (eg, Operation Warp Speed success) that were focused on the successful development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Democrats used a broader range of words (eg, "anti-vaxxers," "flu," and "free") and topics (eg, vaccine prioritization, influenza, and antivaxxers) that were more aligned with public health messaging related to the vaccine. Polarization increased over most of the study period.
Republican and Democratic legislators used different language in their Twitter conversations about vaccination during the COVID-19 era, leading to increased political polarization of vaccine-related tweets. These communication patterns have the potential to contribute to vaccine hesitancy.
新冠疫情时代的特点是与健康相关的话题被政治化。鉴于有证据表明疫苗接种的政治化讨论可能导致疫苗犹豫，这尤其令人担忧。然而，尚无研究考察新冠疫情时代立法者与公众就疫苗接种进行沟通的内容及政治化情况。
本研究旨在考察新冠疫情时代州和联邦立法者发布的与疫苗相关的推文，以（1）描述与疫苗相关推文的内容；（2）研究民主党人和共和党人在与疫苗相关推文内容上的差异；（3）量化（并描述随时间变化的趋势）与疫苗相关沟通中的党派差异。
我们提取了2020年2月1日至2020年12月11日期间州和联邦立法者发布的所有与疫苗相关的推文。我们使用潜在狄利克雷分配来定义推文主题，并使用描述性统计来描述不同党派在主题使用上的差异以及政治两极分化随时间的变化。
我们纳入了1463名州立法者和521名联邦立法者发布的14519条推文。共和党人更有可能使用诸如“创纪录时间”“推出”和“创新”等词汇，以及诸如“曲速行动的成功”等主题，这些都聚焦于新冠病毒疫苗的成功研发。民主党人使用了更广泛的词汇，如“反疫苗者”“流感”和“免费”，以及诸如“疫苗优先级”“流感”和“反疫苗者”等主题，这些主题更符合与疫苗相关的公共卫生信息。在研究的大部分时间段内，两极分化有所加剧。
在新冠疫情时代，共和党和民主党立法者在推特上关于疫苗接种的对话中使用了不同的语言，导致与疫苗相关推文的政治两极分化加剧。这些沟通模式有可能导致疫苗犹豫。
