Lots of bots or maybe nots: A process for detecting bots in social media research

Mehmet, Mehmet; Callaghan, Kane; Lewis, Clifford

doi:10.1177/14707853211027486

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…Finally, we acknowledge that bots may contaminate data collected from social media platforms. Future research should implement a data-cleaning process to eliminate the effect of bot data and ensure data are representative of public opinion [ 56 ]. Future research may also use topic modeling to identify repeated text, which would help eliminate news headlines and bot-generated content.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Sentiment and Topic Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination on Twitter and Vaccine Uptake

Yousef¹,

Dietrich²,

Rundle‐Thiele³

2022

JMIR Form Res

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Background The lack of trust in vaccines is a major contributor to vaccine hesitancy. To overcome vaccine hesitancy for the COVID-19 vaccine, the Australian government launched multiple public health campaigns to encourage vaccine uptake. This sentiment analysis examines the effect of public health campaigns and COVID-19–related events on sentiment and vaccine uptake. Objective This study aims to examine the relationship between sentiment and COVID-19 vaccine uptake and government actions that impacted public sentiment about the vaccine. Methods Using machine learning methods, we collected 137,523 publicly available English language tweets published in Australia between February and October 2021 that contained COVID-19 vaccine–related keywords. Machine learning methods were used to extract topics and sentiments relating to COVID-19 vaccination. The relationship between public vaccination sentiment on Twitter and vaccine uptake was examined. Results The majority of collected tweets expressed negative (n=91,052, 66%) rather than positive (n=21,686, 16%) or neutral (n=24,785, 18%) sentiments. Topics discussed within the study time frame included the role of the government in the vaccination rollout, availability and accessibility of the vaccine, and vaccine efficacy. There was a significant positive correlation between negative sentiment and the number of vaccine doses administered daily (r 267 =.15, P <.05), with positive sentiment showing the inverse effect. Public health campaigns, lockdowns, and antivaccination protests were associated with increased negative sentiment, while vaccination mandates had no significant effect on sentiment. Conclusions The study findings demonstrate that negative sentiment was more prevalent on Twitter during the Australian vaccination rollout but vaccine uptake remained high. Australians expressed anger at the slow rollout and limited availability of the vaccine during the study period. Public health campaigns, lockdowns, and antivaccination rallies increased negative sentiment. In contrast, news of increased vaccine availability for the public and government acquisition of more doses were key government actions that reduced negative sentiment. These findings can be used to inform government communication planning.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Sentiment and Topic Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination on Twitter and Vaccine Uptake

Yousef¹,

Dietrich²,

Rundle‐Thiele³

2022

JMIR Form Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Therefore, the findings likely underestimate the true number of mentions if users frequently post pictures or videos of CEDs on social media. Finally, Brandwatch does not detect or differentiate between real and fake accounts, such as bots, that may potentially inflate the data [ 67 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The extent of energy drink marketing on Canadian social media

et al. 2023

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Background Caffeinated energy drink (CED) consumption among children and adolescents is a growing global public health concern due to its potential to produce adverse effects. CED marketing viewed by children and adolescents contributes to this problem as it increases consumption and favourable attitudes towards these high-caffeine and high-sugar products. This study aimed to describe the social media marketing of CEDs by estimating the frequency of user-generated and company-generated CED marketing and analyzing the marketing techniques used by Canadian CED brands on social media. Methods CED products and brands were identified using the list of CEDs that received a Temporary Marketing Authorization from Health Canada in June 2021. The data on the frequency, reach and engagement of CED-related posts created by users and Canadian CED brands on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, and YouTube were licensed from Brandwatch for 2020–2021. A content analysis was conducted to assess the marketing techniques used in Canadian CED company-generated posts using a coding manual. Results A total of 72 Canadian CED products were identified. Overall, there were 222,119 user-level mentions of CED products in total and the mentions reached an estimated total of 351,707,901 users across platforms. The most popular product accounted for 64.8% of the total user-level mentions. Canadian social media company-owned accounts were found for 27 CED brands. Two CED brands posted the most frequently on Twitter and accounted for the greatest reach, together making up 73.9% of the total company-level posts and reaching 62.5% of the total users in 2020. On Instagram/Facebook, the most popular brand accounted for 23.5% of the company-level posts and 81.3% of the reach between July and September 2021. The most popular marketing techniques used by Canadian CED brands were the use of viral marketing strategies (82.3% of Twitter posts and 92.5% of Instagram/Facebook posts) and the presence of teen themes (73.2% of Twitter posts and 39.4% of Instagram/Facebook posts). Conclusion CED companies are extensively promoting their products across social media platforms using viral marketing strategies and themes that may appeal to adolescents. These findings may inform CED regulatory decision-making. Continued monitoring is warranted.

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Actions Speak Louder Than Words: A Sentiment and Topic Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination on Twitter and Vaccine Uptake (Preprint)

Yousef¹,

Dietrich²,

Rundle‐Thiele³

2022

Preprint

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BACKGROUND The lack of trust in vaccines is a major contributor to vaccine hesitancy. To help overcome vaccine hesitancy, the Australian government launched multiple public health campaigns aiming to encourage COVID-19 vaccine uptake. This sentiment analysis examines the effect of public health campaigns along with other COVID-19 related events on sentiment and vaccine uptake. OBJECTIVE The aims of this study were twofold. First, this study examined the relationship between sentiment and COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Second, this paper studied the range of government actions to consider which events positively impacted public sentiment. METHODS Using machine learning methods, 137,523 publicly available English tweets containing COVID-19 vaccine related keywords between February and October 2021 were collected in Australia. The study employs machine learning methods to extract topics and sentiments relating to COVID-19 vaccination on Twitter. The relationship between public vaccination sentiment on Twitter and vaccine uptake were examined. RESULTS Most tweets expressed negative sentiment (score=91052, 66%) over positive (score=21686, 16%) and neutral (score=24785, 18%) sentiments in the collected tweets. Topics discussed within the study timeframe include the availability of the COVID-19 vaccines, safety of taking the vaccine and the role of the government in the vaccine rollout. A significant positive correlation between negative sentiment and daily doses administered were evident r(267) = .15, p<.05, with positive sentiment showing opposite direction of effect. Public health campaigns, lockdowns and anti-vaccine protests increased negative sentiment significantly (p<.05) while vaccine mandates had no significant effect on sentiment. CONCLUSIONS Findings show negative sentiment was more prevalent on Twitter during the Australian vaccine rollout, but vaccine uptake remained high. Australians expressed anger at the slow rollout and the limited availability of the vaccine during the study period. Public health campaigns along with lockdowns and anti-vaccine rallies increased negative sentiment, while news of vaccine availability for the public and government acquisition of more doses were key government actions capable of reducing negative sentiment. The findings can be used to inform government communication planning.

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Lots of bots or maybe nots: A process for detecting bots in social media research

Cited by 3 publications

References 21 publications

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Sentiment and Topic Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination on Twitter and Vaccine Uptake

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Sentiment and Topic Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination on Twitter and Vaccine Uptake

The extent of energy drink marketing on Canadian social media

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: A Sentiment and Topic Analysis of COVID-19 Vaccination on Twitter and Vaccine Uptake (Preprint)

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