RAPID: The Rise and Propagation of Anti-Vax and Anti-Access Social Media Campaigns Targeted at Disadvantaged and Minority Populations during the COVID19 Pandemic

只要有疫苗，就有疫苗犹豫。当疫苗犹豫导致疫苗接种率降低时，社区中可预防疾病的风险更大。疫苗接种越来越多地成为线下和线上错误信息和虚假信息的目标。 一些虚假信息传播者特别针对弱势群体和少数群体，由于历史原因，他们可能不信任公共卫生机构和医学研究。在这些群体中，对医疗保健系统的不信任往往伴随着对医疗保健的多重障碍和对SARS-CoV-2感染的高度易感性。研究团队正在进行快速反应研究，以更好地了解威胁COVID-19疫苗接种合规性的社交媒体机制以及针对少数群体和弱势群体的虚假信息。该项目探讨了反疫苗运动是如何产生的，以及他们如何使用语言和叙述来煽动对疫苗接种的恐惧和对公共卫生信息的拒绝。该项目的最终目标是促进公民知识和公共卫生的公平。 调查的主要地点是Twitter上的社交媒体互动，并在地理社区进行补充实地调查。社交媒体研究将包括定量和定性分析方法。将创建数据集，以捕获独特的术语（商业疫苗名称，那些标志着针对抗疫苗叙述的群体的名称（例如，“tuskegee”），那些使用表示疫苗抗性但更嘈杂的术语的（例如，“基因疗法”），以及那些捕捉短语，如（“做你自己的研究”）。回顾性检索旨在检测新的抗疫苗叙述的起源。最后，在西达拉斯进行的半结构化访谈的补充实地调查，调查针对黑人和拉丁裔群体的在线反疫苗叙事是否以及如何出现在地理空间中。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As long as there have been vaccines, there has been vaccine hesitancy. When vaccine hesitancy leads to lowered vaccination rates, there is a greater risk for preventable illness in communities. Increasingly, vaccination has become a target for misinformation and disinformation offline and online. Some disinformation purveyors particularly target disadvantaged and minority populations, which for historical reasons may distrust the public health establishment and medical research. Among these groups, distrust in the healthcare system is often accompanied by multiple barriers to healthcare and a heightened susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The research team is conducting quick-response research to better understand the social media mechanisms that threaten COVID-19 vaccination compliance and disinformation targeted at minority and disadvantaged groups. This project explores how anti-vaccine campaigns arise and how they use language and narratives to incite fear of vaccination and rejection of public health messages. An ultimate goal of the project is to further equity in citizen knowledge and public health. The primary sites of investigation are social media interactions on Twitter, with supplemental fieldwork in geographical communities. Social media studies will include both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Data sets will be created that capture unique terms (commercial vaccine names, those that signal groups targeted for anti-vaccine narratives (e.g., “tuskegee”), those using terms that signal vaccine resistance but are noisier (e.g., “gene therapy”), and those capturing phrases such as (“do your own research”). Retrospective searches are intended to detect the genesis of new anti-vaccine narratives. Finally, supplemental fieldwork using semi-structured interviews conducted in West Dallas investigates if and how online anti-vaccine narratives targeted at Black and Latinx groups appear in geographical space. Students will be involved at all stages of the research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.