Political Context of the European Vaccine Debate on Twitter

TL;DR

This study analyzes how political interests influence exposure to vaccine-hesitant content on Twitter across 17 European countries during COVID-19, revealing political alignment impacts vaccine attitudes and the role of politicians in online debates.

Contribution

It provides a systematic, multi-country, longitudinal analysis of the relationship between political interests and vaccine hesitancy on social media during the pandemic.

Findings

Higher endorsement of vaccine-hesitant content early in the pandemic.

Right-wing and anti-EU followers more likely to endorse vaccine hesitancy.

Politicians' social media activity was similar to other popular users.

Abstract

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, fears grew that making vaccination a political (instead of public health) issue may impact the efficacy of this life-saving intervention, spurring the spread of vaccine-hesitant content. In this study, we examine whether there is a relationship between the political interest of social media users and their exposure to vaccine-hesitant content on Twitter. We focus on 17 European countries using a multilingual, longitudinal dataset of tweets spanning the period before COVID, up to the vaccine roll-out. We find that, in most countries, users' endorsement of vaccine-hesitant content is the highest in the early months of the pandemic, around the time of greatest scientific uncertainty. Further, users who follow politicians from right-wing parties, and those associated with authoritarian or anti-EU stances are more likely to endorse vaccine-hesitant content, whereas those following left-wing politicians, more pro-EU or liberal parties, are less likely. Somewhat surprisingly, politicians did not play an outsized role in the vaccine debates of their countries, receiving a similar number of retweets as other similarly popular users. This systematic, multi-country, longitudinal investigation of the connection of politics with vaccine hesitancy has important implications for public health policy and communication.