IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i8p4584-d791100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Social Network Analysis of Twitter Data Related to Blood Clots and Vaccines

Author

Listed:
  • Wasim Ahmed

    (Management School, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK)

  • Josep Vidal-Alaball

    (Health Promotion in Rural Areas Research Group, Gerència Territorial de la Catalunya Central, Institut Català de la Salut, 08772 Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain
    Unitat de Suport a la Recerca de la Catalunya Central, Fundació Institut Universitari per a la Recerca a l’Atenció Primària de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina, 08772 Sant Fruitós de Bages, Spain
    Faculty of Medicine, University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia, 08500 Vic, Spain)

  • Josep M. Vilaseca

    (Faculty of Medicine, University of Vic-Central University of Catalonia, 08500 Vic, Spain
    Primary Care Service, Althaia Xarxa Assistencial Universitària de Manresa, 08243 Manresa, Spain)

Abstract

After the first weeks of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, several cases of acute thrombosis were reported. These news reports began to be shared frequently across social media platforms. The aim of this study was to conduct an analysis of Twitter data related to the overall discussion. The data were retrieved from 14 March to 14 April 2021 using the keyword ‘blood clots’. A dataset with n = 266,677 tweets was retrieved, and a systematic random sample of 5% of tweets ( n = 13,334) was entered into NodeXL for further analysis. Social network analysis was used to analyse the data by drawing upon the Clauset–Newman–Moore algorithm. Influential users were identified by drawing upon the betweenness centrality measure. Text analysis was applied to identify the key hashtags and websites used at this time. More than half of the network comprised retweets, and the largest groups within the network were broadcast clusters in which a number of key users were retweeted. The most popular narratives involved highlighting the low risk of obtaining a blood clot from a vaccine and highlighting that a number of commonly consumed medicine have higher blood clot risks. A wide variety of users drove the discussion on Twitter, including writers, physicians, the general public, academics, celebrities, and journalists. Twitter was used to highlight the low potential of developing a blood clot from vaccines, and users on Twitter encouraged vaccinations among the public.

Suggested Citation

  • Wasim Ahmed & Josep Vidal-Alaball & Josep M. Vilaseca, 2022. "A Social Network Analysis of Twitter Data Related to Blood Clots and Vaccines," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(8), pages 1-8, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:8:p:4584-:d:791100
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/8/4584/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/8/4584/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fan Wu & Su Zhao & Bin Yu & Yan-Mei Chen & Wen Wang & Zhi-Gang Song & Yi Hu & Zhao-Wu Tao & Jun-Hua Tian & Yuan-Yuan Pei & Ming-Li Yuan & Yu-Ling Zhang & Fa-Hui Dai & Yi Liu & Qi-Min Wang & Jiao-Jiao , 2020. "A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China," Nature, Nature, vol. 579(7798), pages 265-269, March.
    2. Fan Wu & Su Zhao & Bin Yu & Yan-Mei Chen & Wen Wang & Zhi-Gang Song & Yi Hu & Zhao-Wu Tao & Jun-Hua Tian & Yuan-Yuan Pei & Ming-Li Yuan & Yu-Ling Zhang & Fa-Hui Dai & Yi Liu & Qi-Min Wang & Jiao-Jiao , 2020. "Author Correction: A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China," Nature, Nature, vol. 580(7803), pages 7-7, April.
    3. Yunjuan Luo & Yang Cheng, 2021. "The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(11), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Wasim Ahmed & Xavier Marin-Gomez & Josep Vidal-Alaball, 2020. "Contextualising the 2019 E-Cigarette Health Scare: Insights from Twitter," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(7), pages 1-10, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrick Cheong-Iao Pang & Wenjing Jiang & Guanwen Pu & Kin-Sun Chan & Ying Lau, 2022. "Social Media Engagement in Two Governmental Schemes during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Macao," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-12, July.
    2. Carlos Ruiz-Núñez & Ivan Herrera-Peco & Silvia María Campos-Soler & Álvaro Carmona-Pestaña & Elvira Benítez de Gracia & Juan José Peña Deudero & Andrés Ignacio García-Notario, 2023. "Sentiment Analysis on Twitter: Role of Healthcare Professionals in the Global Conversation during the AstraZeneca Vaccine Suspension," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-13, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wasim Ahmed & Josep Vidal-Alaball & Francesc Lopez Segui & Pedro A. Moreno-Sánchez, 2020. "A Social Network Analysis of Tweets Related to Masks during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-9, November.
    2. Irizar, Patricia & Kapadia, Dharmi & Amele, Sarah & Bécares, Laia & Divall, Pip & Katikireddi, Srinivasa Vittal & Kibuchi, Eliud & Kneale, Dylan & McCabe, Ronan & Nazroo, James & Nellums, Laura B. & T, 2023. "Pathways to ethnic inequalities in COVID-19 health outcomes in the United Kingdom: A systematic map," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 329(C).
    3. Mubango Hazel & Muzariri Calvin, 2022. "Employee Engagement and Competitive Advantage during Covid 19 Pandemic in Small to Medium Enterprises, Catering Industry, Harare," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 6(4), pages 288-292, April.
    4. Giulia Orilisi & Marco Mascitti & Lucrezia Togni & Riccardo Monterubbianesi & Vincenzo Tosco & Flavia Vitiello & Andrea Santarelli & Angelo Putignano & Giovanna Orsini, 2021. "Oral Manifestations of COVID-19 in Hospitalized Patients: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(23), pages 1-19, November.
    5. David Gomez-Zepeda & Danielle Arnold-Schild & Julian Beyrle & Arthur Declercq & Ralf Gabriels & Elena Kumm & Annica Preikschat & Mateusz Krzysztof Łącki & Aurélie Hirschler & Jeewan Babu Rijal & Chris, 2024. "Thunder-DDA-PASEF enables high-coverage immunopeptidomics and is boosted by MS2Rescore with MS2PIP timsTOF fragmentation prediction model," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-18, December.
    6. Francesco Gangi & Eugenio D'Angelo & Lucia Michela Daniele & Nicola Varrone, 2021. "Assessing the impact of socially responsible human resources management on company environmental performance and cost of debt," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(5), pages 1511-1527, September.
    7. Miquel Oliu-Barton & Bary S. R. Pradelski & Nicolas Woloszko & Lionel Guetta-Jeanrenaud & Philippe Aghion & Patrick Artus & Arnaud Fontanet & Philippe Martin & Guntram B. Wolff, 2022. "The effect of COVID certificates on vaccine uptake, health outcomes, and the economy," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    8. Sneha Gautam & Cyril Samuel & Alok Sagar Gautam & Sanjeev Kumar, 2021. "Strong link between coronavirus count and bad air: a case study of India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 16632-16645, November.
    9. Hengrui Liu & Sho Iketani & Arie Zask & Nisha Khanizeman & Eva Bednarova & Farhad Forouhar & Brandon Fowler & Seo Jung Hong & Hiroshi Mohri & Manoj S. Nair & Yaoxing Huang & Nicholas E. S. Tay & Sumin, 2022. "Development of optimized drug-like small molecule inhibitors of the SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease for treatment of COVID-19," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, December.
    10. Michael Messer, 2022. "Bivariate change point detection: Joint detection of changes in expectation and variance," Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics;Finnish Statistical Society;Norwegian Statistical Association;Swedish Statistical Association, vol. 49(2), pages 886-916, June.
    11. Alessandro Germani & Livia Buratta & Elisa Delvecchio & Claudia Mazzeschi, 2020. "Emerging Adults and COVID-19: The Role of Individualism-Collectivism on Perceived Risks and Psychological Maladjustment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-15, May.
    12. Ioannis Kontoyiannis & Lambros Mertzanis & Athina Panotopoulou & Ioannis Papageorgiou & Maria Skoularidou, 2022. "Bayesian context trees: Modelling and exact inference for discrete time series," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 84(4), pages 1287-1323, September.
    13. Gabriela Dias Noske & Yun Song & Rafaela Sachetto Fernandes & Rod Chalk & Haitem Elmassoudi & Lizbé Koekemoer & C. David Owen & Tarick J. El-Baba & Carol V. Robinson & Glaucius Oliva & Andre Schutzer , 2023. "An in-solution snapshot of SARS-COV-2 main protease maturation process and inhibition," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-13, December.
    14. Eugene Song & Jae-Eun Lee & Seola Kwon, 2021. "Effect of Public Empathy with Infection-Control Guidelines on Infection-Prevention Attitudes and Behaviors: Based on the Case of COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-18, December.
    15. Kow-Tong Chen, 2022. "Emerging Infectious Diseases and One Health: Implication for Public Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-4, July.
    16. Sui Zhang & Minghao Wang & Zhao Yang & Baolei Zhang, 2021. "A Novel Predictor for Micro-Scale COVID-19 Risk Modeling: An Empirical Study from a Spatiotemporal Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-16, December.
    17. Shujuan Li & Lingli Zhu & Lidan Zhang & Guoyan Zhang & Hongyan Ren & Liang Lu, 2023. "Urbanization-Related Environmental Factors and Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome: A Review Based on Studies Taken in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-20, February.
    18. Umit Cirakli & Ibrahim Dogan & Mehmet Gozlu, 2022. "The Relationship Between COVID-19 Cases and COVID-19 Testing: a Panel Data Analysis on OECD Countries," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 13(3), pages 1737-1750, September.
    19. Neeltje van Doremalen & Jonathan E. Schulz & Danielle R. Adney & Taylor A. Saturday & Robert J. Fischer & Claude Kwe Yinda & Nazia Thakur & Joseph Newman & Marta Ulaszewska & Sandra Belij-Rammerstorfe, 2022. "ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) or nCoV-19-Beta (AZD2816) protect Syrian hamsters against Beta Delta and Omicron variants," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    20. Jaeyong Lee & Calem Kenward & Liam J. Worrall & Marija Vuckovic & Francesco Gentile & Anh-Tien Ton & Myles Ng & Artem Cherkasov & Natalie C. J. Strynadka & Mark Paetzel, 2022. "X-ray crystallographic characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease polyprotein cleavage sites essential for viral processing and maturation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:8:p:4584-:d:791100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.