Development of a Codebook of Online Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric to Manage COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation

  1. Brian Hughes
  2. Cynthia Miller-Idriss
  3. Rachael Piltch-Loeb
  4. Beth Goldberg
  5. Kesa White
  6. Meili Criezis
  7. Elena Savoia

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Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy (delay in obtaining a vaccine, despite availability) represents a significant hurdle to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Vaccine hesitancy is in part related to the prevalence of anti-vaccine misinformation and disinformation, which are spread through social media and user-generated content platforms. This study uses qualitative coding methodology to identify salient narratives and rhetorical styles common to anti-vaccine and COVID-denialist media. It organizes these narratives and rhetorics according to theme, imagined antagonist, and frequency. Most frequent were narratives centered on “corrupt elites” and rhetorics appealing to the vulnerability of children. The identification of these narratives and rhetorics may assist in developing effective public health messaging campaigns, since narrative and emotion have demonstrated persuasive effectiveness in other public health communication settings.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/ijerph18147556
  2. Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

    Matthew Seeger

    Review 2: "Development of a Codebook of Online Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric to Manage COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation"

    Reviewers find this a well-executed effort to characterize the nature of vaccine hesitancy in online forums, while also noting that vaccine hesitancy arises through other channels, and that the study might be enriched by engaging other theoretical and empirical literature.

  3. Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

    Toby Bolsen

    Review 1: "Development of a Codebook of Online Anti-Vaccination Rhetoric to Manage COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation"

    Reviewers find this a well-executed effort to characterize the nature of vaccine hesitancy in online forums, while also noting that vaccine hesitancy arises through other channels, and that the study might be enriched by engaging other theoretical and empirical literature.

  5. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.23.21253727: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  6. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.23.21253727v1 on medRxiv