Annotated Bibliography

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English Composition I

Annotated Bibliography

20 November 2017

The Internet’s Effect on Vaccines

Proposed research essay thesis: Parents who use basic internet searches for information on

vaccines are likely to respond negatively to the results, which often affirm and expound upon

their initial vaccination fears.

Salathé M, Khandelwal. “Assessing Vaccination Sentiments with Online Social Media:

Implications for Infectious Disease Dynamics and Control.” PLoS Comput Biol 7(10):

e1002199. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002199

In Khandelwal Salathé’s published journal, he discusses the algorithm used to follow tweets, for

six months, on a new vaccine. The findings in this journal show that opinions on vaccinations

can influence an individual’s medical decisions. By using Twitter, the author also found that

these opinions are generally clustered, whether positive or negative. Information does not cross

the cluster boundaries. The clusters of people who view vaccinations as positive do not share

information on vaccines being harmful. Vise versa, people with negative views on vaccines do

not share information showing the vaccines in a positive light. Salathé says in the journal, “we

find that both negative and positive opinions are clustered, and that an equivalent level of

clustering of vaccinations in a population would strongly increase disease outbreak risks.”

This source is reliable and unbiased. The author used a proven data collecting method to gather

information on all available tweets found on Twitter. The goal of this author was to find the

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correlation of vaccine sentiments to the number of reported vaccines by the CDC. All the

information presented in this journal is factual. The author does not give his opinion on

vaccinations.

This journal entry will greatly help me in writing my paper. It presents facts and numbers that are

backed up by unbiased research. I will be able to cite credible information on a study that used a

well-known social media site. This journal has affirmed my stance on the way the internet is

negatively shaping the vaccine trend.

Jeanette B Ruiz, and Robert A Bell. “Understanding Vaccination Resistance: Vaccine Search

Term Selection Bias and the Valence of Retrieved Information.” NCBI, U.S. National

Library of Medicine, 7 Oct. 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25176640.

The journal published by authors Ruiz and Bell discusses the information brought up when

parents google vaccines. To test their theories, they used a variety of positive, neutral and

negative search terms. With these terms, it was determined that the information presented

depended solely on what terms were entered in the search form. The authors were looking for

information on 15 myths of vaccines. Positive terms brought up articles that agreed with

vaccinations and denied these myths. Neutral terms brought up a variety of articles agreeing or

disagreeing. Negative search terms brought up mostly all negative articles that gave way to these

vaccine myths. These results concluded that concerned parents who googled their fears were

only met with information that perpetuated myths and recommended against vaccines.

This source was written by two authors who recommend vaccines; however, their research was

unbiased and provides solid evidence that the internet hurts the vaccine movement. Robert Bell

also works in the Public Health Department and offers lots of knowledge and experience in the

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field of vaccinations. The goal of this journal publication was to show that concerned parents

who research at home are not being given the correct and unbiased facts.

This journal will help in my paper by providing reliable research into the information given out

on a Google search. This backs up my opinion that the internet only hurts the vaccine movement,

and does not help ease fears of parents. If one parent reads a myth online about a vaccination

such as they cause autism, he or she will go to Google and research more about this. The

websites brought up will contain false information and lead a parent to thinking this myth is true,

and he or she will stop vaccinating. I now will be able to cite a study and use their numbers and

percentages.