Melody Sepahpour-Fard

The erosion of public trust in health information and government communication, particularly during crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, highlights a critical challenge in how health policies are transmitted and received. This study examines the dramatic shift in public sentiment toward Covid-19 vaccination in South Africa during 2021, a period that saw a decline from initial high acceptance to significant hesitancy. We argue that a process of social media selection allowed extreme views to proliferate as official sources retreated. Our findings suggest that sustained or increased mainstream media engagement, particularly from official sources like government and health authorities, could have mitigated the dominance of anti-vaccine narratives and have crucial implications for government communication and public health policies in the digital age. We collected and classified 482,450 original tweets about vaccination. We show that, by the end of 2021, Twitter activity was characterized by a progressive surge in anti-vaccination tweets and a decline in pro-vaccination and factual information, particularly from mainstream media. This shift mirrors the decrease in actual vaccination rates. Employing agent-based modeling, we simulated counterfactual scenarios to assess the impact of media presence on vaccine discourse. The results indicate that sustained or increased media engagement could have mitigated the dominance of anti-vaccine narratives. Conversely, a simulated media downturn led to a steeper decline in pro-vaccination content. The findings suggest that mainstream news media play a crucial role in shaping public perceptions of and support for health policies and that their disengagement creates an informational void exploited by misinformation.

This study investigates the emergence of collective identity among individuals critical of vaccination policies in France during the COVID-19 pandemic. As concerns grew over mandated health measures, a loose collective formed on Twitter to assert autonomy over vaccination decisions. Using analyses of pronoun usage, outgroup labeling, and tweet similarity, we examine how this identity emerged. A turning point occurred following President Macron's announcement of mandatory vaccination for health workers and the health pass, sparking substantial changes in linguistic patterns. We observed a shift from first-person singular (I) to first-person plural (we) pronouns, alongside an increased focus on vaccinated individuals as a central outgroup, in addition to authority figures. This shift in language patterns was further reflected in the behavior of new users. An analysis of incoming users revealed that a core group of frequent posters played a crucial role in fostering cohesion and shaping norms. New users who joined during the week of Macron's announcement and continued posting afterward showed an increased similarity with the language of the core group, contributing to the crystallization of the emerging collective identity.

To study the causes of the 2021 Great Resignation, we use text analysis and investigate the changes in work- and quit-related posts between 2018 and 2021 on Reddit. We find that the Reddit discourse evolution resembles the dynamics of the U.S. quit and layoff rates. Furthermore, when the COVID-19 pandemic started, conversations related to working from home, switching jobs, work-related distress, and mental health increased, while discussions on commuting or moving for a job decreased. We distinguish between general work-related and specific quit-related discourse changes using a difference-in-differences method. Our main finding is that mental health and work-related distress topics disproportionally increased among quit-related posts since the onset of the pandemic, likely contributing to the quits of the Great Resignation. Along with better labor market conditions, some relief came beginning-to-mid-2021 when these concerns decreased. Our study underscores the importance of having access to data from online forums, such as Reddit, to study emerging economic phenomena in real time, providing a valuable supplement to traditional labor market surveys and administrative data.

This paper explores how individuals’ language use in gender-specific groups (“mothers” and “fathers”) compares to their interactions when referred to as “parents.” Language adaptation based on the audience is well-documented, yet large-scale studies of naturally-occurring audience effects are rare. To address this, we investigate audience and gender effects in the context of parenting, where gender plays a significant role. We focus on interactions within Reddit, particularly in the parenting Subreddits r/Daddit, r/Mommit, and r/Parenting, which cater to distinct audiences. By analyzing user posts using word embeddings, we measure similarities between user-tokens and word-tokens, also considering differences among high and low self-monitors. Results reveal that in mixed-gender contexts, mothers and fathers exhibit similar behavior in discussing a wide range of topics, while fathers emphasize more on educational and family advice. Single-gender Subreddits see more focused discussions. Mothers in r/Mommit discuss medical care, sleep, potty training, and food, distinguishing themselves. In terms of individual differences, we found that, especially on r/Parenting, high self-monitors tend to conform more to the norms of the Subreddit by discussing more of the topics associated with the Subreddit.

To study the causes of the 2021 Great Resignation, we use text analysis to investigate the changes in work- and quit-related posts between 2018 and 2021 on Reddit. We find that the Reddit discourse evolution resembles the dynamics of the U.S. quit and layoff rates. Furthermore, when the COVID-19 pandemic started, conversations related to working from home, switching jobs, work-related distress, and mental health increased. We distinguish between general work-related and specific quit-related discourse changes using a difference-in-differences method. Our main finding is that mental health and work-related distress topics disproportionally increased among quit-related posts since the onset of the pandemic, likely contributing to the Great Resignation. Along with better labor market conditions, some relief came beginning-to-mid-2021 when these concerns decreased. Our study validates the use of forums such as Reddit for studying emerging economic phenomena in real time, complementing traditional labor market surveys and administrative data.