Unmasking COVID-19 Vaccine “Infodemic” in the Social Media

Abstract

The activities of the anti-vaccine crusaders and conspiracy theorists on social media platforms have influenced billions of people across the globe on the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines currently been used for immunizations. The increased social media mis/disinformation on the efficacies and safety of these vaccines developed have raised a global concern among all stakeholders. This study adopted a convenience sampling through an online survey to collect data from N=1800 participants (students) from five (5) public universities in Accra the national capital of Ghana, which is also the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic to examine their perceptions on the overabundance COVID-19 pandemic information on social media and how these pieces information consumption impacts their trust/mistrust/distrust in the COVID-19 vaccines. The findings of our study indicate that there exist vital levels of COVID-19 vaccines "infodemic" on social media and these overabundances of COVID-19 vaccine information on social media has caused great levels of fear and panic among the students and the public. We also found that, the high exposure to COVID-19 vaccine information on social media are associated with negative perceptions and higher levels of mistrust/distrust among the population. This study recommends that stakeholders such as WHO, policymakers, and accredited health institutions must embark on public health communication campaigns to educate the public on the credible sources of COVID-19 pandemic information on social media.

“Until I Know It’s Safe for Me”: The Role of Timing in COVID-19 Vaccine Decision-Making and Vaccine Hesitancy

“…In any event, the deployment of effective communication strategies [14] that help to provide targeted information that addresses these questions may be useful. This is particularly important given the negative impact of (dis/mis)information on vaccine behavior around the world [61][62][63]. Scientific communication must take into account readers' and viewers' concerns, should be simple and accessible, and should ideally also be capable of performing well in a social media environment [64].…”

Vaccination Infodemic Among Citizens of Magallanes, Cavite, Philippines

“…It poses challenges and threats for those who are deceived by fake health information. As suggested by scholars Demuyakor, Nyatuame, and Obiri (2021) governments and stakeholders must carry out massive public education on fact checking. It will reduce the level of panic, fear, and mistrust that false information on social media has brought to the public.…”

Psychological Factors Related to Fear of COVID-19 in the General Salvadoran Population

“…It is followed by nineteenth items that inquire about elements concerning the social support connections of the respondent, with a scale from (1) "Never" to five (5) "Always." It stands out and is characterized for being a short, comprehensible, selfadministered questionnaire which allows to investigate global support in four dimensions: emotional support (questions 3, 4, 8, 9, 13,16,17,19); instrumental support (questions 2, 5, 12, 15); positive social interaction (questions 7, 11, 14, 18); and affective support (questions 6,10,20). In this research, the following reliability indexes were obtained: in emotional support, Cronbach´s Alpha was .96; in instrumental support the index was .88; in positive social interaction it had an index of .93, and in affective support it had an index of .90.…”

“…In the same manner, a systematic review reveals that scientific production is not enough yet to clarify the impact of SARS-CoV-2 asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic carriers in the disease's propagation [11]. On the other hand, Berberoglu and Dinler [12] demonstrated that communication plays a very important role in the creation of fear towards COVID-19, meanwhile, Demuyakor et al, [13] suggests that people who were exposed to information about COVID-19 vaccine in social media perceived that information as negative and developed higher levels of distrust towards COVID-19 vaccine.…”