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Text-Mining and Video Analytics of COVID-19 Narratives Shared by Patients on YouTube

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Abstract

This study explores how individuals who have experienced COVID-19 share their stories on YouTube, focusing on the nature of information disclosure, public engagement, and emotional impact pertaining to consumer health. Using a dataset of 186 YouTube videos, we used text mining and video analytics techniques to analyze textual transcripts and visual frames to identify themes, emotions, and their relationship with viewer engagement metrics. Findings reveal eight key themes: infection origins, symptoms, treatment, mental well-being, isolation, prevention, government directives, and vaccination. While viewers engaged most with videos about infection origins, treatment, and vaccination, fear and sadness in the text consistently drove views, likes, and comments. Visuals primarily conveyed happiness and sadness, but their influence on engagement varied. This research highlights the crucial role YouTube plays in disseminating COVID-19 patient narratives and suggests its potential for improving health communication strategies. By understanding how emotions and content influence viewer engagement, healthcare professionals and public health officials can tailor their messaging to better connect with the public and address pandemic-related anxieties.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the assistance they received from Robert Bui, Joshua Pollack and Mohankumar Krishnakumar for the data collection and exploratory data analysis.

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This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information & Decision Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Ranganathan Chandrasekaran, Karthik Konaraddi & Sakshi S. Sharma

  2. Heriot-Watt University, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

    Evangelos Moustakas

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  1. Ranganathan Chandrasekaran
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Contributions

RC: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Writing - Original Draft, Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision. KK: Data curation, Software, Writing - Review & Editing. SS: Methodology, Data Curation, Project administration, Writing – Review & Editing. EM: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Writing – Review & Editing. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ranganathan Chandrasekaran.

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Chandrasekaran, R., Konaraddi, K., Sharma, S.S. et al. Text-Mining and Video Analytics of COVID-19 Narratives Shared by Patients on YouTube. J Med Syst 48, 21 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-024-02047-1

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