%0 Journal Article
%@ 1438-8871
%I JMIR Publications
%V 23
%N 12
%P e29127
%T Content and Dynamics of Websites Shared Over Vaccine-Related Tweets in COVID-19 Conversations: Computational Analysis
%A Cruickshank,Iain
%A Ginossar,Tamar
%A Sulskis,Jason
%A Zheleva,Elena
%A Berger-Wolf,Tanya
%+ Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA, 15201, United States, 1 7192371515, icruicks@andrew.cmu.edu
%K COVID-19
%K agenda setting
%K antivaccination
%K cross-platform
%K data mining of social media
%K misinformation
%K social media
%K Twitter
%K vaccinations
%K vaccine hesitancy
%D 2021
%7 3.12.2021
%9 Original Paper
%J J Med Internet Res
%G English
%X Background: The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent “infodemic” increased concerns about Twitter’s role in advancing antivaccination messages, even before a vaccine became available to the public. New computational methods allow for analysis of cross-platform use by tracking links to websites shared over Twitter, which, in turn, can uncover some of the content and dynamics of information sources and agenda-setting processes. Such understanding can advance theory and efforts to reduce misinformation. Objective: Informed by agenda-setting theory, this study aimed to identify the content and temporal patterns of websites shared in vaccine-related tweets posted to COVID-19 conversations on Twitter between February and June 2020. Methods: We used triangulation of data analysis methods. Data mining consisted of the screening of around 5 million tweets posted to COVID-19 conversations to identify tweets that related to vaccination and including links to websites shared within these tweets. We further analyzed the content the 20 most-shared external websites using a mixed methods approach. Results: Of 841,896 vaccination-related tweets identified, 185,994 (22.1%) contained links to specific websites. A wide range of websites were shared, with the 20 most-tweeted websites constituting 14.5% (27,060/185,994) of the shared websites and typically being shared for only 2 to 3 days. Traditional media constituted the majority of these 20 websites, along with other social media and governmental sources. We identified markers of inauthentic propagation for some of these links. Conclusions: The topic of vaccination was prevalent in tweets about COVID-19 early in the pandemic. Sharing websites was a common communication strategy, and its “bursty” pattern and inauthentic propagation strategies pose challenges for health promotion efforts. Future studies should consider cross-platform use in dissemination of health information and in counteracting misinformation. 
%M 34665760
%R 10.2196/29127
%U https://www.jmir.org/2021/12/e29127
%U https://doi.org/10.2196/29127
%U http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34665760