Public sentiment analysis and topic modeling regarding COVID-19 vaccines on the Reddit social media platform: A call to action for strengthening vaccine confidence

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jiph.2021.08.010
• Publication Date: 2021-08-14T15:10:51Z
• Authors: Chad A. Melton; Olufunto A. Olusanya; Nariman Ammar; Arash Shaban-Nejad
• Keywords: Misinformation; Sentiment Analysis; Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic fueled one of the most rapid vaccine developments in history. However, misinformation spread through online social media often leads to negative sentiment and hesitancy. To investigate vaccine-related discussion media, we conducted a analysis Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling on textual data collected from 13 Reddit communities focusing Dec 1, 2020, May 15, 2021. Data were aggregated analyzed by month detect changes any latent topics. Polarity suggested these expressed more positive than regarding discussions has remained static over time. Topic revealed community members mainly focused side effects rather outlandish conspiracy theories. Covid-19 content subreddits show that sentiments are overall have not meaningfully changed since December 2020. Keywords indicating hesitancy detected throughout LDA modeling. Public vaccines could facilitate implementation appropriate messaging, digital interventions, new policies promote confidence.