ArticleBMC public health2022
From science to politics: COVID-19 information fatigue on YouTube.
Article in BMC public health, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Drivers of health polarization during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.Science advances · 2025Pooled it
- Individual Characteristics in the Comprehension of Pandemic Video Communication: Randomized Controlled Between-Subjects Design.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Trial
- Infodemic Versus Viral Information Spread: Key Differences and Open Challenges.JMIR infodemiology · 2025Article
- The impact of health information echo chambers on older adults avoidance behavior: the mediating role of information fatigue and the moderating role of trait mindfulness.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Adolescents' political and personal responses to recent policies restricting abortion and gender-affirming care.Contraception: X · 2024Article
- Predictors of adherence in Austrian employees during the COVID-19 pandemic: results of an online survey.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- COVID-19 infodemic and health-related quality of life in patients with chronic respiratory diseases: A multicentre, observational study.Journal of global health · 2023Observational
- Immune Literacy: a Call to Action for a System-Level Change.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2023Article
- Translation, Adaptation and Validation of the Pandemic Fatigue Scale (PFS) in the Greek Language.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic is the first pandemic where social media platforms relayed information on a large scale, enabling an "infodemic" of conflicting information which undermined the global response to the pandemic. Understanding how the information circulated and evolved on social media platforms is essential for planning future public health campaigns. This study investigated what types of themes about COVID-19 were most viewed on YouTube during the first 8 months of the pandemic, and how COVID-19 themes progressed over this period.
methodsWe analyzed top-viewed YouTube COVID-19-related videos in English from December 1, 2019 to August 16, 2020 with an open inductive content analysis. We coded 536 videos associated with 1.1 billion views across the study period. East Asian countries were the first to report the virus, while most of the top-viewed videos in English were from the US. Videos from straight news outlets dominated the top-viewed videos throughout the outbreak, and public health authorities contributed the fewest. Although straight news was the dominant COVID-19 video source with various types of themes, its viewership per video was similar to that for entertainment news and YouTubers after March.
resultsWe found, first, that collective public attention to the COVID-19 pandemic on YouTube peaked around March 2020, before the outbreak peaked, and flattened afterwards despite a spike in worldwide cases. Second, more videos focused on prevention early on, but videos with political themes increased through time. Third, regarding prevention and control measures, masking received much less attention than lockdown and social distancing in the study period.
conclusionOur study suggests that a transition of focus from science to politics on social media intensified the COVID-19 infodemic and may have weakened mitigation measures during the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is recommended that authorities should consider co-operating with reputable social media influencers to promote health campaigns and improve health literacy. In addition, given high levels of globalization of social platforms and polarization of users, tailoring communication towards different digital communities is likely to be essential.
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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.