Investigating COVID-19 Vaccine Messaging in Online Social Networks using Artificial Intelligence

Safe and effective vaccination is leading the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the urgency of full vaccination that prevents serious illness, a state of vaccine messaging augmented by disinformation campaigns in online social networks has emerged. Several studies have established a link between social media activity and vaccine messaging, and most platforms are actively removing vaccine disinformation. The objective of this study is to apply a validated Artificial Intelligence (AI) framework to extract, analyze and synthesize themes, emotions and emotion transitions associated with COVID-19 vaccine messaging in online social networks. We applied the framework on approximately 400,000 COVID-19 vaccine-related posts and conversations on two social media platforms, Twitter and Reddit, from March 2020 to September 2021. The results of this study are threefold, firstly, the discovery of a minority of implied anti-vaccine themes on infertility, microchips, gene editing and fetal cells that have remained undetected. Secondly, the discovery of six themes that capture a majority of the vaccine messaging namely, social lockdown measures, frontline healthcare providers, side effects, vaccine distribution, breakthrough infections and vaccine efficacy on variants. Thirdly, the variety and intensity of emotions expressed since the start of the pandemic, and comparatively negative emotions being expressed in recent months. We anticipate the findings of our study will contribute towards improved vaccine messaging as the world returns to a new normal from the COVID-19 pandemic.