Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: May 3, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: May 3, 2023 - Jun 28, 2023
Date Accepted: Oct 13, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Public Perceptions about Monkeypox on Twitter: A Thematic Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
Social media have emerged as important sources of information generated by large segments of the population, which can be particularly valuable during infectious disease outbreaks.
Objective:
By analyzing posts from Twitter (tweets), we aimed to identify the topics of public discourse, and knowledge and opinions about the monkeypox virus during the 2022 outbreak.
Methods:
We collected data from Twitter for English-language posts using the key phrases monkeypox, mpoxvirus, and monkey pox, and their hashtag equivalents from August to October 2022. We selected a small random sample from the collected posts, analyzed, coded, and manually categorized them first into topics, then into coarse-grained themes.
Results:
128,615 posts were collected in total; 200 tweets were selected and included for manual analyses. Eight themes were generated from the Twitter posts—monkeypox doubts, media, monkeypox transmission, effect of monkeypox, knowledge of monkeypox, politics, monkeypox vaccine, and general comments. The commonest themes from our study were monkeypox doubts and media, 22% each. The posts represented a mixture of useful information as new knowledge on the topic emerged, and also misinformation.
Conclusions:
Social networks, such as Twitter, are useful sources of information in the early stages of outbreaks. Close to real-time identification and analyses of misinformation may help authorities take the necessary steps in a timely manner. Clinical Trial: N/A
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