ソーシャルメディア上のウェルネス系インフルエンサーはCOVID-19ワクチン接種に反対する割合が高い(Wellness influencers on social media were more likely to oppose COVID-19 vaccination)

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2024-12-23 ミシガン大学

ミシガン大学の研究によると、ソーシャルメディア上のウェルネス系インフルエンサーは、COVID-19ワクチンに反対する投稿を一般ユーザーより高い頻度で発信していました。2020~2022年にかけて行われた調査では、パンデミック前から特定されたウェルネスインフルエンサーの約50%が反ワクチンのメッセージを投稿しており、これらは子供の保護や政府の権威主義的措置への反対を呼びかける内容が中心でした。
◆研究者は、伝統的な医療機関や科学者への信頼が低下している中、ウェルネスインフルエンサーが代替的な健康情報の源として機能している可能性を指摘しています。この研究は、科学的態度や健康情報の形成におけるインフルエンサーの役割を解明する重要な一歩です。

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ソーシャルメディアにおけるCOVID-19ワクチンに対するウェルネス・インフルエンサーの反応: 縦断的観察研究 Wellness Influencer Responses to COVID-19 Vaccines on Social Media: A Longitudinal Observational Study

Gabrielle O’Brie;  Ronith Ganjigunta;  Paramveer S Dhillon
Journal of Medical Internet Research  Published January 23, 2024
DOI:https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/56651

ソーシャルメディア上のウェルネス系インフルエンサーはCOVID-19ワクチン接種に反対する割合が高い(Wellness influencers on social media were more likely to oppose COVID-19 vaccination)

Abstract

Background:
Online wellness influencers (individuals dispensing unregulated health and wellness advice over social media) may have incentives to oppose traditional medical authorities. Their messaging may decrease the overall effectiveness of public health campaigns during global health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective:
This study aimed to probe how wellness influencers respond to a public health campaign; we examined how a sample of wellness influencers on Twitter (rebranded as X in 2023) identified before the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter took stances on the COVID-19 vaccine during 2020-2022. We evaluated the prevalence of provaccination messaging among wellness influencers compared with a control group, as well as the rhetorical strategies these influencers used when supporting or opposing vaccination.

Methods:
Following a longitudinal design, wellness influencer accounts were identified on Twitter from a random sample of tweets posted in 2019. Accounts were identified using a combination of topic modeling and hand-annotation for adherence to influencer criteria. Their tweets from 2020-2022 containing vaccine keywords were collected and labeled as pro- or antivaccination stances using a language model. We compared their stances to a control group of noninfluencer accounts that discussed similar health topics before the pandemic using a generalized linear model with mixed effects and a nearest-neighbors classifier. We also used topic modeling to locate key themes in influencer’s pro- and antivaccine messages.

Results:
Wellness influencers (n=161) had lower rates of provaccination stances in their on-topic tweets (20%, 614/3045) compared with controls (n=242 accounts, with 42% or 3201/7584 provaccination tweets). Using a generalized linear model of tweet stance with mixed effects to model tweets from the same account, the main effect of the group was significant (β1=–2.2668, SE=0.2940; P<.001). Covariate analysis suggests an association between antivaccination tweets and accounts representing individuals (β=–0.9591, SE=0.2917; P=.001) but not social network position. A complementary modeling exercise of stance within user accounts showed a significant difference in the proportion of antivaccination users by group (χ21[N=321]=36.1, P<.001). While nearly half of the influencer accounts were labeled by a K-nearest neighbor classifier as predominantly antivaccination (48%, 58/120), only 16% of control accounts were labeled this way (33/201). Topic modeling of influencer tweets showed that the most prevalent antivaccination themes were protecting children, guarding against government overreach, and the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry. Provaccination messaging tended to encourage followers to take action or emphasize the efficacy of the vaccine.

Conclusions:
Wellness influencers showed higher rates of vaccine opposition compared with other accounts that participated in health discourse before the pandemic. This pattern supports the theory that unregulated wellness influencers have incentives to resist messaging from establishment authorities such as public health agencies.

医療・健康
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