Communication Analysis of the COVID-19 Infodemic by MedicalPractitioners in China: A Mixed Methods Study

Teng Zuo¹, Lingfeng He², Yuan Zheng³, Zezheng Lin⁴, Zelin Xu⁵, Ning Li¹

Affiliations

¹Urology Department, Fourth Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China
²Institute for Empirical Social Science Research, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
³School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
⁴School of Foreign Languages, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
⁵Department of Colorectal Tumor Surgery, School of Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen University, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.

Abstract

Background: The infodemic during the public health policy transformation in Chinese mainland is known; however, the contributions of medical practitioners have not been evaluated. This study aimed to estimate the role of medical practitioners during the COVID-19 infodemic in Chinese mainland and reveal
content structure and spatiotemporal features.

Methods: Data from medical practitioner accounts with the highest influence were collected from Sina Weibo. Original contents were collected from March 1st, 2022 to October 1st, 2023. Misinformation were identified based on cross-validated content analysis. Propagation index, spatiotemporal and network
analysis were performed.

Findings: A total of 236,775 posts were crawled, with 28,218 posts from 432 accounts filtered through a keyword search and 5,825 out of 28,218 (20.6%) posts from 287 out of 432 (66.4%) accounts identified as COVID-19-related content. 640 out of 5,825 (11.0%) posts from 112 out of 287 (39.0%) accounts were identified as misinformation and classified into 5 main types and 6 subtypes. Differences between internal and external accounts were reflected in the distribution of misinformation types. Propagators from various professions had different tendencies in terms of type, and several misinformation repropagation modes were observed. Social network analysis revealed strong correlations among
propagators.

Interpretation: To our knowledge, this is the first mixed-methods study to examine the characteristics of medical practitioners as propagators in the infodemic in Chinese mainland. Our research suggested that Chinese medical practitioners significantly contributed to the COVID-19 infodemic in social media. This could exacerbate post-pandemic societal distrust in the medical system, potentially having far-reaching public health implications.

Keywords: Infodemic; Misinformation; COVID-19; Social media; Medical practitioners; Chinese mainland

Full Text Links: Communication Analysis of the COVID-19 Infodemic by Medical Practitioners in China: A Mixed Methods Study – ScienceDirect