Moral Panic through the Lens of Twitter: An Analysis of Infectious Disease Outbreaks

Wasim Ahmed; Peter A Bath; Laura Sbaffi; Gianluca Demaerini

doi:10.1145/3217804.3217915

Moral Panic through the Lens of Twitter: An Analysis of Infectious Disease Outbreaks

Wasim Ahmed, Peter A Bath, Laura Sbaffi, Gianluca Demaerini

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

19 Citations (Scopus)

14 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper presents an in-depth qualitative analysis of n=13,373 tweets that relate to the peak of the Swine Flu outbreak of 2009, and the Ebola outbreak of 2014. Tweets were analysed using thematic analysis and a number of themes and sub-themes were identified. The results were brought together in an abstraction phase and the commonalities between the cases were studied. An interesting similarity which emerged was the rate at which Twitter users expressed intense fear and panic akin to that of the sociological concept of “moral panic”. Moreover, a number of discussions were found to emerge which were not reported in previous literature. Our study is the largest in-depth analysis of tweets on infectious diseases. Our results will inform public health strategies for future infectious disease outbreaks. Future work will seek to conduct further comparisons and explore relevant health theory.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	SMSociety '18 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society
Publisher	ACM
Pages	217-221
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-4503-6334-1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3217804.3217915
Publication status	Published - 19 Jul 2018
Event	9th International Conference on Social Media & Society - Copenhagen, Denmark Duration: 18 Jul 2018 → 20 Jul 2018 http://socialmediaandsociety.org/

Conference

Conference	9th International Conference on Social Media & Society
Country/Territory	Denmark
City	Copenhagen
Period	18/07/18 → 20/07/18
Internet address	http://socialmediaandsociety.org/

Keywords

Information Systems
World Wide Web
Web Applications
Social Networks

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1145/3217804.3217915

SMSociety18_paper_160 FINALFinal published version, 139 KB

Cite this

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title = "Moral Panic through the Lens of Twitter: An Analysis of Infectious Disease Outbreaks",

abstract = "This paper presents an in-depth qualitative analysis of n=13,373 tweets that relate to the peak of the Swine Flu outbreak of 2009, and the Ebola outbreak of 2014. Tweets were analysed using thematic analysis and a number of themes and sub-themes were identified. The results were brought together in an abstraction phase and the commonalities between the cases were studied. An interesting similarity which emerged was the rate at which Twitter users expressed intense fear and panic akin to that of the sociological concept of “moral panic”. Moreover, a number of discussions were found to emerge which were not reported in previous literature. Our study is the largest in-depth analysis of tweets on infectious diseases. Our results will inform public health strategies for future infectious disease outbreaks. Future work will seek to conduct further comparisons and explore relevant health theory. ",

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booktitle = "SMSociety '18 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society",

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Ahmed, W, Bath, PA, Sbaffi, L & Demaerini, G 2018, Moral Panic through the Lens of Twitter: An Analysis of Infectious Disease Outbreaks. in SMSociety '18 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society . ACM, pp. 217-221, 9th International Conference on Social Media & Society, Copenhagen, Denmark, 18/07/18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3217804.3217915

TY - GEN

T1 - Moral Panic through the Lens of Twitter: An Analysis of Infectious Disease Outbreaks

AU - Ahmed, Wasim

AU - Bath, Peter A

AU - Sbaffi, Laura

AU - Demaerini, Gianluca

PY - 2018/7/19

Y1 - 2018/7/19

N2 - This paper presents an in-depth qualitative analysis of n=13,373 tweets that relate to the peak of the Swine Flu outbreak of 2009, and the Ebola outbreak of 2014. Tweets were analysed using thematic analysis and a number of themes and sub-themes were identified. The results were brought together in an abstraction phase and the commonalities between the cases were studied. An interesting similarity which emerged was the rate at which Twitter users expressed intense fear and panic akin to that of the sociological concept of “moral panic”. Moreover, a number of discussions were found to emerge which were not reported in previous literature. Our study is the largest in-depth analysis of tweets on infectious diseases. Our results will inform public health strategies for future infectious disease outbreaks. Future work will seek to conduct further comparisons and explore relevant health theory.

AB - This paper presents an in-depth qualitative analysis of n=13,373 tweets that relate to the peak of the Swine Flu outbreak of 2009, and the Ebola outbreak of 2014. Tweets were analysed using thematic analysis and a number of themes and sub-themes were identified. The results were brought together in an abstraction phase and the commonalities between the cases were studied. An interesting similarity which emerged was the rate at which Twitter users expressed intense fear and panic akin to that of the sociological concept of “moral panic”. Moreover, a number of discussions were found to emerge which were not reported in previous literature. Our study is the largest in-depth analysis of tweets on infectious diseases. Our results will inform public health strategies for future infectious disease outbreaks. Future work will seek to conduct further comparisons and explore relevant health theory.

KW - Information Systems

KW - World Wide Web

KW - Web Applications

KW - Social Networks

U2 - 10.1145/3217804.3217915

DO - 10.1145/3217804.3217915

M3 - Conference contribution

SP - 217

EP - 221

BT - SMSociety '18 Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Social Media and Society

PB - ACM

T2 - 9th International Conference on Social Media & Society

Y2 - 18 July 2018 through 20 July 2018

ER -

Moral Panic through the Lens of Twitter: An Analysis of Infectious Disease Outbreaks

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

UN SDGs

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Cite this