Previously submitted to: JMIR Infodemiology (no longer under consideration since Mar 21, 2023)
Date Submitted: Aug 1, 2022
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Content Analysis of Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine-Related Videos on YouTube in Japan
ABSTRACT
Background:
Internet content about the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine may affect people's decisions to get vaccinated. Therefore, it is important to provide information on all the aspects of the HPV vaccine on YouTube, one of the most popular social media platforms. However, few studies have focused on Japanese videos about these vaccines.
Objective:
This study aimed to describe the YouTube content on HPV vaccines by analyzing the related Japanese videos in context of the account characteristics, attitude towards the vaccine, and thumbnail characteristics.
Methods:
Relevant videos with keywords “HPV vaccine” and “cervical cancer vaccine” uploaded before November 11, 2021 were collected using the YouTube data application programming interface. The videos were accessed using unique IDs after being independently coded by two different coders. Differences in the coding results were resolved by discussion. The main outcome measures included channel information and classification, attitude towards HPV vaccine, description of reimbursement, designation of the vaccine, and the thumbnail details.
Results:
As of November 11, 2021, positive and negative attitude videos regarding HPV vaccines accounted for approximately 44% of the Japanese YouTube videos. In the year 2013, an increase in negative videos was observed, while from 2019 onwards, majority of the videos uploaded had positive attitudes towards the vaccine. Videos with negative tones generally used the terminology "cervical cancer vaccines ". Majority of the negative videos were uploaded by individual accounts, whereas all the videos uploaded by medical workers were positive or neutral. Only four videos mentioned side-effect compensation. The most frequently used thumbnails were the photographs of people who appeared in the videos.
Conclusions:
This study summarizes the characteristics of Japanese YouTube videos about the HPV vaccine. Compared to the English version, there are fewer anti-vaccine videos in Japan, but there is also a lack of videos uploaded by credible authorities.
Citation
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