Dataset Information

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in English-language news media: retrospective cohort study.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To describe COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and track trends over time in traditional news media.

Design

Retrospective cohort study of a large database of online articles, July 2020-June 2021.

Setting

English-language articles from 100 news outlets with the greatest reach.

Main outcome measures

Numbers and percentages of articles containing COVID-19 vaccine misinformation over the study period. Further analysis by misinformation themes and whether articles included primary misinformation, fact-checking or simply referred to misinformation.

Results

41 718 (3.2% of all COVID-19 vaccine articles) contained at least one of the vaccine misinformation themes based on the Boolean string developed for this study. The volume of such articles increased beginning in November 2020, but their percentage of all articles remained essentially stable after October 2020. 56.2% contained at least one mention of a safety theme, followed by development, production, and distribution (26.6%), and conspiracies (15.1%). Of 500 articles through January 2021 randomly selected from those identified by the Boolean string, 223 were not relevant, and 277 included either fact-checking (175 articles), refers to misinformation (87 articles) or primary misinformation (15 articles). In eight study weeks, the reach of these 277 articles (defined as visitors to the sites containing the articles) exceeded 250 million people. Fact-checking accounted for 69.6% of all reach for these articles and the number of such articles increased after November 2020. Overall, approximately 0.1% (95% CI 0.05% to 0.16%) of all articles on COVID-19 vaccines in our sample contained primary misinformation.

Conclusions

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in traditional news media is uncommon but has the capacity to reach large numbers of readers and affect the vaccine conversation. Recent increases in fact-checking may counteract some of the misinformation currently circulating.

SUBMITTER: Lurie P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9160593 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in English-language news media: retrospective cohort study.

Lurie Peter P Adams Jordan J Lynas Mark M Stockert Karen K Carlyle Robyn Correll RC Pisani Amy A Evanega Sarah Davidson SD

BMJ open 20220601 6

<h4>Objectives</h4>To describe COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and track trends over time in traditional news media.<h4>Design</h4>Retrospective cohort study of a large database of online articles, July 2020-June 2021.<h4>Setting</h4>English-language articles from 100 news outlets with the greatest reach.<h4>Main outcome measures</h4>Numbers and percentages of articles containing COVID-19 vaccine misinformation over the study period. Further analysis by misinformation themes and whether articles ...[more]

PMID: 35649595

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Project description:BackgroundThe development of COVID-19 vaccines has been crucial in fighting the pandemic. However, misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines is spread on social media platforms at a rate that has made the World Health Organization coin the phrase infodemic. False claims about adverse vaccine side effects, such as vaccines being the cause of autism, were already considered a threat to global health before the outbreak of COVID-19.ObjectiveWe aimed to synthesize the existing research on misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines spread on social media platforms and its effects. The secondary aim was to gain insight and gather knowledge about whether misinformation about autism and COVID-19 vaccines is being spread on social media platforms.MethodsWe performed a literature search on September 9, 2021, and searched PubMed, PsycINFO, ERIC, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and the Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register. We included publications in peer-reviewed journals that fulfilled the following criteria: original empirical studies, studies that assessed social media and misinformation, and studies about COVID-19 vaccines. Thematic analysis was used to identify the patterns (themes) of misinformation. Narrative qualitative synthesis was undertaken with the guidance of the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) 2020 Statement and the Synthesis Without Meta-analysis reporting guideline. The risk of bias was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal tool. Ratings of the certainty of evidence were based on recommendations from the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation Working Group.ResultsThe search yielded 757 records, with 45 articles selected for this review. We identified 3 main themes of misinformation: medical misinformation, vaccine development, and conspiracies. Twitter was the most studied social media platform, followed by Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. A vast majority of studies were from industrialized Western countries. We identified 19 studies in which the effect of social media misinformation on vaccine hesitancy was measured or discussed. These studies implied that the misinformation spread on social media had a negative effect on vaccine hesitancy and uptake. Only 1 study contained misinformation about autism as a side effect of COVID-19 vaccines.ConclusionsTo prevent these misconceptions from taking hold, health authorities should openly address and discuss these false claims with both cultural and religious awareness in mind. Our review showed that there is a need to examine the effect of social media misinformation on vaccine hesitancy with a more robust experimental design. Furthermore, this review also demonstrated that more studies are needed from the Global South and on social media platforms other than the major platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.Trial registrationPROSPERO International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews CRD42021277524; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42021277524.International registered report identifier (irrid)RR2-10.31219/osf.io/tyevj.

Dataset Information

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in English-language news media: retrospective cohort study.

Objectives

Design

Setting

Main outcome measures

Results

Conclusions

Publications

COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in English-language news media: retrospective cohort study.

Similar Datasets

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