Abstract
BackgroundThe global onset of COVID-19 has resulted in substantial public health and socioeconomic impacts. An immediate medical breakthrough is needed. However, parallel to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic is the proliferation of information regarding the pandemic, which, if uncontrolled, cannot only mislead the public but also hinder the concerted efforts of relevant stakeholders in mitigating the effect of this pandemic. It is known that media communications can affect public perception and attitude toward medical treatment, vaccination, or subject matter, particularly when the population has limited knowledge on the subject.ObjectiveThis study attempts to systematically scrutinize media communications (Google News headlines or snippets and Twitter posts) to understand the prevailing sentiments regarding COVID-19 vaccines in Africa.MethodsA total of 637 Twitter posts and 569 Google News headlines or descriptions, retrieved between February 2 and May 5, 2020, were analyzed using three standard computational linguistics models (ie, TextBlob, Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner, and Word2Vec combined with a bidirectional long short-term memory neural network).ResultsOur findings revealed that, contrary to general perceptions, Google News headlines or snippets and Twitter posts within the stated period were generally passive or positive toward COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. It was possible to understand these patterns in light of increasingly sustained efforts by various media and health actors in ensuring the availability of factual information about the pandemic.ConclusionsThis type of analysis could contribute to understanding predominant polarities and associated potential attitudinal inclinations. Such knowledge could be critical in informing relevant public health and media engagement policies.
Highlights
COVID-19 COVID-19, a communicable disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, has resulted in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic [1], with significant health and socioeconomic effects in almost all countries of the world, mainly due to the shutdowns, social distancing, and the resultant business interruptions [2,3,4,5]
It was possible to understand these patterns in light of increasingly sustained efforts by various media and health actors in ensuring the availability of factual information about the pandemic
Von Nordheim et al [68] examined the use of different social media platforms as journalistic sources in newspapers of three different countries; the authors observed that Twitter is more commonly used as a news source than Facebook, and in comparison to Facebook, Twitter was primarily used as an elite channel [68]
Summary
COVID-19 COVID-19, a communicable disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, has resulted in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic [1], with significant health and socioeconomic effects in almost all countries of the world, mainly due to the shutdowns, social distancing, and the resultant business interruptions [2,3,4,5]. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a COVID-19 outbreak due to its global adverse (health and economic) impact [6,7], which is still escalating as the world eagerly awaits a medical solution. 1 (page number not for citation purposes) global economic growth could fall by 0.5% for the year 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19 [7]. A forecast by the World Bank projects that Africa is heading toward its first recession in the last 25 years, being driven by the impact of COVID-19 [2]. The global onset of COVID-19 has resulted in substantial public health and socioeconomic impacts. It is known that media communications can affect public perception and attitude toward medical treatment, vaccination, or subject matter, when the population has limited knowledge on the subject
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