Comparing COVID-19 vaccine passports attitudes across countries by analysing Reddit comments

YURTSEVER M. M. E., Shiraz M., Ekinci E., EKEN S.

JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SCIENCE, 2023 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Publication Date: 2023
  • Doi Number: 10.1177/01655515221148356
  • Journal Name: JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SCIENCE
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, FRANCIS, IBZ Online, Periodicals Index Online, ABI/INFORM, Aerospace Database, Analytical Abstracts, Applied Science & Technology Source, Business Source Elite, Business Source Premier, Communication Abstracts, Compendex, Computer & Applied Sciences, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, Index Islamicus, Information Science and Technology Abstracts, INSPEC, Library and Information Science Abstracts, Library Literature and Information Science, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Metadex, Civil Engineering Abstracts
  • Kocaeli University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Topic mining and sentiment polarity analysis together can adequately represent the topics and attitudes of users. The goal of this article is to use Reddit's location-based subreddits to look at country-level differences in attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine passports. We used sentiment analysis and latent topic modelling on textual data obtained from 18 Reddit communities concentrating on COVID-19 vaccine passports from 1 January 2021 to 28 February 2022 to study COVID-19 vaccine passports-related discussion on Reddit. To discover changes in sentiment and latent topics, 11,168 comments were aggregated and examined by month. The number of comments on postings from country-specific subreddits was positively proportional to the number of new COVID-19 cases reported each day. The more subjective expressions and positive/negative interpretations occurred after July 2021. Communities indicated more positive sentiment than negative sentiment towards vaccine passports-related topics, according to polarity analysis. Topic modelling found that community members were concerned about a variety of concerns related to their socioeconomic status. Throughout the topic modelling, keywords suggesting people's privacy concerns and acceptance of various COVID-19 control methods were found. The use of public opinion and topic modelling to analyse vaccine passports could help with important global health informatics concerns associated with their socioeconomic status.