Observational studyPloS one2022
Polarization and trust in the evolution of vaccine discourse on Twitter during COVID-19.
Observational study in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Drivers of health polarization during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review.Science advances · 2025Pooled it
- Regional and temporal patterns of partisan polarization during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and Canada.PloS one · 2026Article
- Leveraging complex network features improves vaccine stance classification.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Explaining Twitter's inability to effectively moderate content during the COVID-19 pandemic.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Twitter communities are associated with changing user's opinion towards COVID-19 vaccine in Japan.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Wellbeing, nature connection and vaccine attitudes: A convergent mixed methods study in Wim Hof Method practitioners.PLOS mental health · 2025Article
- Exploring vaccine hesitancy in digital public discourse: From tribal polarization to socio-economic disparities.PloS one · 2024Article
- 'Vaccine as aFrontiers in psychology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Trust in vaccination is eroding, and attitudes about vaccination have become more polarized. This is an observational study of Twitter analyzing the impact that COVID-19 had on vaccine discourse. We identify the actors, the language they use, how their language changed, and what can explain this change. First, we find that authors cluster into several large, interpretable groups, and that the discourse was greatly affected by American partisan politics. Over the course of our study, both Republicans and Democrats entered the vaccine conversation in large numbers, forming coalitions with Antivaxxers and public health organizations, respectively. After the pandemic was officially declared, the interactions between these groups increased. Second, we show that the moral and non-moral language used by the various communities converged in interesting and informative ways. Finally, vector autoregression analysis indicates that differential responses to public health measures are likely part of what drove this convergence. Taken together, our results suggest that polarization around vaccination discourse in the context of COVID-19 was ultimately driven by a trust-first dynamic of political engagement.
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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.