Systematic delineation of media polarity on COVID-19 vaccines in Africa using computational linguistic models

BACKGROUND: The global onset of COVID-19 has resulted in substantial public health and socioeconomic impacts. An immediate medical breakthrough is needed. However, parallel to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic is the proliferation of information regarding the pandemic, which, if uncontrolled, cannot only mislead the public but also hinder the concerted efforts of relevant stakeholders in mitigating the effect of this pandemic. It is known that media communications can affect public perception and attitude toward medical treatment, vaccination, or subject matter, particularly when the population has limited knowledge on the subject. OBJECTIVE: This study attempts to systematically scrutinize media communications (Google News headlines or snippets and Twitter posts) to understand the prevailing sentiments regarding COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. METHODS: A total of 637 Twitter posts and 569 Google News headlines or descriptions, retrieved between February 2 and May 5, 2020, were analyzed using three standard computational linguistics models (ie, TextBlob, Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner, and Word2Vec combined with a bidirectional long short-term memory neural network). RESULTS: Our findings revealed that, contrary to general perceptions, Google News headlines or snippets and Twitter posts within the stated period were generally passive or positive toward COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. It was possible to understand these patterns in light of increasingly sustained efforts by various media and health actors in ensuring the availability of factual information about the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: This type of analysis could contribute to understanding predominant polarities and associated potential attitudinal inclinations. Such knowledge could be critical in informing relevant public health and media engagement policies.