Characterizing the COVID-19 Infodemic on Chinese Social Media: Exploratory Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The COVID-19 infodemic has been disseminating rapidly on social media and posing a significant threat to people's health and governance systems.

Objective

This study aimed to investigate and analyze posts related to COVID-19 misinformation on major Chinese social media platforms in order to characterize the COVID-19 infodemic.

Methods

We collected posts related to COVID-19 misinformation published on major Chinese social media platforms from January 20 to May 28, 2020, by using PythonToolkit. We used content analysis to identify the quantity and source of prevalent posts and topic modeling to cluster themes related to the COVID-19 infodemic. Furthermore, we explored the quantity, sources, and theme characteristics of the COVID-19 infodemic over time.

Res

SUBMITTER: Zhang S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7869922 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature