Categorization and Comparison of Influential Twitter Users and Sources Referenced in Tweets for Two Health-Related Topics

Aseel Addawood, Priyanka Balakumar, Jana Diesner

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

The internet’s evolution has had a profound influence on how people acquire medical information. The innovation of web 2.0 has been regarded as the primary motivating factor for people who want to access health-related education. In this work, we identify the URL categories that Twitter users incorporate into their messages when engaging in two selected health-related topics (MMR vaccines and healthy diets). Moreover, we identify the categories of influential message authors who engage in these two topics. Finally, we explore the relationship between different user categories and their patterns of URL sharing. Our results show that when it comes to influential users sharing fake news, users discussing vaccine-related topics were more than twice as likely to share a fake news URLs than those discussing healthy diets.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationInformation in Contemporary Society - 14th International Conference, iConference 2019, Proceedings
EditorsMichelle H. Martin, Natalie Greene Taylor, Bonnie Nardi, Caitlin Christian-Lamb
PublisherSpringer
Pages639-646
Number of pages8
ISBN (Print)9783030157418
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019
Event14th International Conference on Information in Contemporary Society, iConference 2019 - Washington, United States
Duration: Mar 31 2019Apr 3 2019

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume11420 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference14th International Conference on Information in Contemporary Society, iConference 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWashington
Period3/31/194/3/19

Keywords

  • Health issues
  • Influential users
  • Social media

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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