Lazaga, M. K., Dowell, J. D., & Makary, M. S. (2021). Characterization of the #Radiology Twitter Conversation During the Global COVID-19 Pandemic. Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363018821000372

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Researchers were interested in studying the global dissemination of information, specifically regarding radiology, through Twitter during Covid-19 because radiology played a crucial role in diagnosis during the early stages of the pandemic when testing was not easily accessible to the general public.

Characterization of the #Radiology Twitter Conversation During the Global COVID-19 Pandemic

- Used Symplur Signals’ Hashtag Finder tool to identify tweets between February 1 to December 31, 2020 containing the hashtag #Radiology
- From those tweets, the ones that had a Covid-19 related keyword were kept; keywords included COVID19, COVID, corona, coronavirus, pandemic, SARSCOV2, and COVID-19
- Obtained tweets, retweets, impressions, links, hashtags, and user characterizations
- Impressions are the number of possible views that each tweet could get; computed by multiplying the number of tweets by the number of followers of each user

Characterization of the #Radiology Twitter Conversation During the Global COVID-19 Pandemic data collection

- Tweets, retweets, and mentions by individual users were generally for amplifying information and not so much sharing new information
- Social media influencing knowledge dissemination, especially with the beginning of Covid-19 bringing in additional Twitter users into the radiology community 
- Dissemination of publications and new research also more easily accessible and understandable because users and followers can have access to such information immediately by searching under hashtags and tags

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