With the progress of national vaccination protocols around the world and with the launch of direct citizen experiences, the analysis of social conversations and online content carried out by Reputation Science, a leading company in Italy in reputation analysis and management, is enriched with new trends. Among the most evident results that emerge from the analysis of about 215 thousand contents published between February and March, there is the new role played by social media in determining the reputation of vaccines among Italians. If in the past they had played a substantially neutral role, with similar weights between positive and negative content, now social networks become the only channel to positively influence the overall reputation on vaccines. On the contrary, online news sites, including digital versions of major newspapers, have channeled negative views on vaccines more, resulting in a sharp decline in the reputation curve.
As Andrea Barchiesi, CEO of Reputation Science, points out that “the online conversation in the last two months has mainly focused on AstraZeneca, which alone collected 56.5% of the total conversations on vaccines. PfizerBioNTech (18.7%) and Moderna (9.8%) remain at a distance, while for other vaccines the volumetric curve is almost exhausted. Symptom of the pressure that the news regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine has exerted on the entire online conversation regarding vaccines, not only in terms of volumes but also in terms of the sentiment associated with it ”.
Looking at the data on individual vaccines, the object of analysis that collected the most online content in the period under review is AstraZeneca, with 56.5% of the total. Followed by Pfizer / BioNTech (18.7%), Moderna (9.8%), Sputnik V (7.6%) and Johnson & Johnson (5.9%).
From a qualitative point of view, the vaccine that achieved the best reputational impact between 9 February and 19 March 2021 is Pfizer / BioNTech (+539.07 r), followed on the podium by Sputnik V (378.87 r) and Johnson & Johnson (+338.75 r). The only vaccine to have a negative reputational impact is that of AstraZeneca, which in the survey period accumulated a negative value of -6137.83 r. In light of the trends that have emerged in the last two months, the distribution of sentiment among vaccines starting from December sees Moderna (+ 1850 r) in first place, followed by Sputnik V (+1027 r) and Johnson & Johnson (+470.7 r) ); in the last places we find Pfizer which, while recovering from the previous survey, remains in negative territory with -902 r and AstraZeneca, in last place, with -6108 r.
(The news in Reputation Science published in the afternoon referred to an earlier period. We apologize to the readers).