ArticleHealth information science and systems2020
How can social media analytics assist authorities in pandemic-related policy decisions? Insights from Australian states and territories.
Article in Health information science and systems, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- When Infodemic Meets Epidemic: Systematic Literature Review.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2025Pooled it
- Sentiment analysis in public health: a systematic review of the current state, challenges, and future directions.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- The role of social media in enhancing health awareness, social support and educational progress among university students in Oman during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional survey.Frontiers in sociology · 2026Article
- Unconventional data, unprecedented insights: leveraging non-traditional data during a pandemic.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- The Role of Social Media in Building Pandemic Resilience in an Urban Community: A Qualitative Case Study.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Impacts of Covid-19 interventions on air quality: evidence from Brazilian metropolitan regions.International journal of environmental science and technology : IJEST · 2023Article
- Using geospatial social media data for infectious disease studies: a systematic review.International journal of digital earth · 2023Article
- COVID-19 Vaccination-Related Sentiments Analysis: A Case Study Using Worldwide Twitter Dataset.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Lessons for science and technology policy? Probing the Linkedin network of an RDI organisation.SN social sciences · 2022Article
- Changes in Public Response Associated With Various COVID-19 Restrictions in Ontario, Canada: Observational Infoveillance Study Using Social Media Time Series Data.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Iktishaf+: A Big Data Tool with Automatic Labeling for Road Traffic Social Sensing and Event Detection Using Distributed Machine Learning.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- What social media told us in the time of COVID-19: a scoping review.The Lancet. Digital health · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesDue to COVID-19, various countries introduced lockdowns and limited citizen movements. These restrictions triggered an increased use of digital technologies and platforms by the public. This provides an opportunity for the authorities to capture public perceptions on COVID-19 from social media channels to make informed decisions. The use of social media analytics during pandemics for decision-making, however, is an understudied area of research. Thus, this study aims to generate insights into how social media analytics can assist authorities in pandemic-related policy decisions.
methodsThis study involved a social media analysis approach-i.e., systematic geo-Twitter analysis-that contains descriptive, content, sentiment, and spatial analyses. Australian states and territories are selected as the case study context for the empirical investigation. This study collected 96,666 geotagged tweets (originated from Australia between 1 January and 4 May 2020), and analysed 35,969 of them after data cleaning.
resultsThe findings disclose that: (a) Social media analytics is an efficient approach to capture the attitudes and perceptions of the public during a pandemic; (b) Crowdsourced social media data can guide interventions and decisions of the authorities during a pandemic, and; (c) Effective use of government social media channels can help the public to follow the introduced measures/restrictions.
conclusionThe findings are invaluable for authorities to understand community perceptions and identify communities in needs and demands in a pandemic situation, where authorities are not in a position to conduct direct and lengthily public consultations.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.