Social Media Sentiments Towards Vaccines

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant changes in everyday life in the United States and has also been a topic of heartfelt discussion in the public forum. One of the most outspoken and passionate facets of discussion has been that of the COVID vaccine. As with nearly all national issues, vaccine sentiment has been fueled by politics, socioeconomic issues, fact, theory, misinformation, genuine concern, and much more. As a result, this study seeks to explore public sentiment regarding COVID vaccination by utilizing Twitter and R statistical software to conduct an analysis on real-world data. Moreover, we are concerned with both the degree of varying sentiment and any identifiable motivations that may help explain widespread polarization of sentiment. Most of the study resonates around the four most populous states of the United States: California, Florida, New York, and Texas. Even so, the study will also incorporate nationwide data as it analyzes the usage of both Android and iPhone platforms to Tweet about the topic of COVID vaccination. The textual analysis conducted in this study will provide useful insight through the utilization of word-maps and the NRC Word-Emotion Association Lexicon and will also help facilitate a model for future study replication. One of our primary goals for this study is to promote replication for future sentiment models. Lastly, the provided research will also outline associated methods, implications, weaknesses, and opportunities for the future.