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Asymmetric influence of emotion in the sharing of COVID-19 science on social media : observational study
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Luo, Kai, Yang, Yang and Teo, Hock Hai (2022) Asymmetric influence of emotion in the sharing of COVID-19 science on social media : observational study. JMIR Infodemiology, 2 (2). e37331. doi:10.2196/37331 ISSN 2564-1891.
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WRAP-Asymmetric-influence-of-emotion-in-the-sharing-of-COVID-19-science-on-social-media-observational-study-Yang-2022.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (770Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/37331
Abstract
Background:
Unlike past pandemics, COVID-19 is different to the extent that there is an unprecedented surge in both peer-reviewed and preprint research publications, and important scientific conversations about it are rampant on online social network, even among lay people. Clearly, this new phenomenon of scientific discourse is not well understood in that we do not know the diffusion patterns of peer-reviewed publications vis-à-vis preprints and what makes them viral.
Objective:
To inform health science communicator and policy makers’ decision on how to promote reliable sharing of crucial pandemic science on social media, this paper aims to examine how the emotionality of the messages about preprint and peer-reviewed publications shape their diffusion through online social networks.
Methods:
We collected a large sample of all Twitter discussion of early month COVID-19 medical research outputs in both preprint servers and peer-reviewed journals and conducted statistical analyses to examine how the emotional valence, specific emotion, as well as scientists’ participation influence the retweet rate.
Results:
Our large-scale analyses (n=243,567) revealed that scientific publications with positive emotion tweets were transmitted faster than those with negative emotion tweets, especially for messages about preprints. Our results also showed that scientists’ participation on social media could accentuate the positive emotion effects on the sharing of peer-reviewed publications.
Conclusions:
Clear communication of critical science is crucial in the nascent stage of a pandemic. Through revealing the emotional dynamics in the social media sharing of COVID-19 scientific outputs, our study offers scientists and policy makers an avenue to shape the discussion and diffusion of emerging scientific publications by manipulating the emotionality of the tweets.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HM Sociology P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics R Medicine > R Medicine (General) R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- , COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- , in mass media , COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- -- Influence, Online social networks , Social media -- Influence , Communication in medicine, Emotions | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | JMIR Infodemiology | ||||||
| Publisher: | JMIR Publications Inc. | ||||||
| ISSN: | 2564-1891 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 8 December 2022 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 2 | ||||||
| Number: | 2 | ||||||
| Number of Pages: | 21 | ||||||
| Article Number: | e37331 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.2196/37331 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 6 December 2022 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 7 December 2022 |
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