Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Sep 25, 2020
Date Accepted: Apr 14, 2021
The Characteristics of Anti-vaccine Messages on Social Media: A Systematic Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Considering how easily the anti-vaccination movement can get across their scientifically not proven information in social media, it is vital to learn more about their messages and activity. This will enable reacting and responding effectively to the false information they publish, aimed to discourage people against vaccinating.
Objective:
This study aimed to gather, assess, and synthesise evidence on the current state of knowledge about anti-vaccine users` activity on social media.
Methods:
We systematically reviewed English-language papers from three databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed). A data extraction form was established including authors, year of publication, specific objectives, study design, comparison if existed, and outcomes of significance. An aggregative narrative synthesis of the included studies was performed.
Results:
The search strategy retrieved 731 records in total. After screening for duplicates and eligibility, 18 articles were included in the qualitative synthesis. Most of the authors analysed text messages, however, some of them studied images or videos. While most of the studies examine vaccines in a general way, five focus specifically on HPV vaccines, two on measles, and one on influenza. The synthesised studies took up the following research problems: the popularity of pro- and anti-vaccination content, the style and way of formulating the messages about vaccines for the users, the range of topics concerning vaccines (harmful action, limited freedom to choose, conspiracy theories), the role and activity of bots in disseminating the messages in social media.
Conclusions:
Anti-vaccine movement uses a limited number of arguments in their messages, so there is a possibility to prepare publications clarifying doubts and debunking the most common lies. Public health authorities should conduct ongoing monitoring of social media, to find new anti-vaccine arguments quickly and then to create information campaigns designed for health professionals and common users.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.