Research Article
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The Role of Wikipedia in providing information on coronavirus to Societies during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Year 2020, Volume: 6 Issue: 3, 316 - 324, 31.12.2020

Adem Doğaner

https://doi.org/10.19127/mbsjohs.781930
Cited By: 1

Abstract

Objective: The coronavirus, which had first appeared in late 2019, turned into a pandemic spreading all over the world in a short time. People used internet resources to get information during the pandemic process. Wikipedia is one of the popular sources of internet preferred for accessing information in diseases and previous outbreaks. This study, the use of Wikipedia as an internet source in the coronavirus pandemic process was evaluated. The societies access to the articles on Wikipedia has been analyzed in detail.
Methods: In the study, among the articles related to coronavirus on Wikipedia, the articles with a high number of views, which are displayed between January 20, 2020, and May 20, 2020, containing information in all languages were determined. 4 articles with the highest number of views matching these items were selected. These articles were evaluated in terms of views and updates. Searched topics on Wikipedia by societies during to pandemic process were determined.
Results: The number of Wikipedia searches in search engines increased significantly in the period of 20 January 2020 - 20 May 2020 compared to the period of 20 January 2019 - 20 May 2019 (p<0.001). During the Coronavirus pandemic, "Wikipedia" was searched more in search engines. 4 articles reached over 130 million page views in total. Societies have researched past outbreaks and measures against coronavirus on Wikipedia.
Conclusion: Wikipedia has been an important source of internet for societies during the coronavirus pandemic process. Wikipedia data can be applied to predicting and modeling trends in societies.

Keywords

Coronavirus Internet Information Wikipedia

Supporting Institution

There is no support for the study.

Project Number

-

References

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  • Bernard Stoecklin S, Rolland P, Silue Y, Mailles A, Campese C, Simondon A, et al.; Investigation Team. First cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in France: surveillance, investigations and control measures, January 2020. Euro Surveill. 2020 Feb;25(6):2000094. doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.6.2000094.
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  • Chen N, Zhou M, Dong X, Qu J, Gong F, Han Y, et al. Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study. Lancet. 2020;395(10223):507-513. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30211-7.
  • Cucinotta D, Vanelli M. WHO Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic. Acta Biomed. 2020;91(1):157-160. doi:10.23750/abm.v91i1.9397.
  • Del Valle EPG, Garcia GL, Prieto Santamaria L, Zanin M, Ruiz EM, González AR. Evaluating Wikipedia as a Source of Information for Disease Understanding. In: Proceedings IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems. 2018. doi:10.1109/CBMS.2018.00076.
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  • Google Trends, 2020. Wikipedia. Available from URL https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=TR&q=Wikipedia. Accessed 30 May 2020.
  • Jabaley CS, Groff RF, O’Reilly-Shah VN. Asthma information seeking via Wikipedia between 2015 and 2018: Implications for awareness promotion. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 2019. 199(4):531-3. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201809-1649LE.
  • Khatri P, Singh SR, Belani NK, Yeong YL, Lohan R, Lim YW, et al. YouTube as source of information on 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak: a cross sectional study of English and Mandarin content. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2020. 35:101636. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2020.101636.
  • Moccia M, Carotenuto A, Massarelli M, Lanzillo R, Brescia Morra V. Can people with multiple sclerosis actually understand what they read in the Internet age? J Clin Neurosci. 2016. 1;25:167-8. doi:10.1016/j.jocn.2015.10.003.
  • Omer SB, Malani P, Del Rio C. The COVID-19 Pandemic in the US: A Clinical Update. JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association. 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.5788. Pageviews Analysis Tool, 2020. https://pageviews.toolforge.org. Accessed 25-30 May 2020.
  • Priedhorsky R, Osthus D, Daughton AR, Moran KR, Generous N, Fairchild G, et al. Measuring global disease with Wikipedia: Success, failure, and a research agenda. In: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW. 2017. doi:10.1145/2998181.2998183.
  • Roy D, Tripathy S, Kar SK, Sharma N, Verma SK, Kaushal V. Study of knowledge, attitude, anxiety & perceived mental healthcare need in Indian population during COVID-19 pandemic. Asian J Psychiatr. 2020. doi:10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102083.
  • Sohrabi C, Alsafi Z, O’Neill N, Khan M, Kerwan A, Al-Jabir A, et al. World Health Organization declares global emergency: A review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19). International Journal of Surgery. 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.02.034.
  • Tausczik Y, Faasse K, Pennebaker JW, Petrie KJ. Public Anxiety and Information Seeking Following the H1N1 Outbreak: Blogs, Newspaper Articles, and Wikipedia Visits. Health Commun. 2012. doi:10.1080/10410236.2011.571759.
  • Tizzoni M, Panisson A, Paolotti D, Cattuto C. The impact of news exposure on collective attention in the United States during the 2016 Zika epidemic. PLoS Comput Biol. 2020. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007633.
  • Viégas FB, Wattenberg M, Kriss J, Van Ham F. Talk before you type: Coordination in Wikipedia. In: Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 2007. doi: 10.1109/HICSS.2007.511.
  • Wikipedia, 2020. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org.
  • WHO. (2020), “WHO Director-General ’s remarks at the media briefing on 2019-nCoV on 11 February”, WHO Director General’s Statement.
  • World Health Organization (WHO). (2020), Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation report – 51. 2020 March 11. Available from URL https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200311-sitrep-51-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=1ba62e57_10. Accessed 24 May 2020.
  • Worldometers, 2020. COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic. Available from URL https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries. Accessed 20 May 2020.

Year 2020, Volume: 6 Issue: 3, 316 - 324, 31.12.2020

Adem Doğaner

https://doi.org/10.19127/mbsjohs.781930
Cited By: 1

Abstract

Project Number

-

References

  • Al Tamime R, Giordano R, Hall W. Observing burstiness in wikipedia articles during new disease outbreaks. In: WebSci 2018 - Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Web Science. 2018. doi:10.1145/3201064.3201080.
  • Bernard Stoecklin S, Rolland P, Silue Y, Mailles A, Campese C, Simondon A, et al.; Investigation Team. First cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in France: surveillance, investigations and control measures, January 2020. Euro Surveill. 2020 Feb;25(6):2000094. doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.6.2000094.
  • Brigo F, Lattanzi S, Bragazzi N, Nardone R, Moccia M, Lavorgna L. Why do people search Wikipedia for information on multiple sclerosis?. Mult Scler Relat Disord. 2018;20:210-214. doi:10.1016/j.msard.2018.02.001.
  • Brigo F, Lattanzi S, Tassi L, Giussani G, Italian Wikipedia and epilepsy: An infodemiological study of online information-seeking behavior. Epilepsy Behav. 2018;81:119-122. doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2018.01.037.
  • Chen N, Zhou M, Dong X, Qu J, Gong F, Han Y, et al. Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of 99 cases of 2019 novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a descriptive study. Lancet. 2020;395(10223):507-513. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30211-7.
  • Cucinotta D, Vanelli M. WHO Declares COVID-19 a Pandemic. Acta Biomed. 2020;91(1):157-160. doi:10.23750/abm.v91i1.9397.
  • Del Valle EPG, Garcia GL, Prieto Santamaria L, Zanin M, Ruiz EM, González AR. Evaluating Wikipedia as a Source of Information for Disease Understanding. In: Proceedings IEEE Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems. 2018. doi:10.1109/CBMS.2018.00076.
  • Georgescu M, Kanhabua N, Krause D, Nejdl W, Siersdorfer S. Extracting event-related information from article updates in Wikipedia. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. 2013. pp. 254-266.
  • Google Trends, 2020. Wikipedia. Available from URL https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=TR&q=Wikipedia. Accessed 30 May 2020.
  • Jabaley CS, Groff RF, O’Reilly-Shah VN. Asthma information seeking via Wikipedia between 2015 and 2018: Implications for awareness promotion. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. 2019. 199(4):531-3. doi: 10.1164/rccm.201809-1649LE.
  • Khatri P, Singh SR, Belani NK, Yeong YL, Lohan R, Lim YW, et al. YouTube as source of information on 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak: a cross sectional study of English and Mandarin content. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2020. 35:101636. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2020.101636.
  • Moccia M, Carotenuto A, Massarelli M, Lanzillo R, Brescia Morra V. Can people with multiple sclerosis actually understand what they read in the Internet age? J Clin Neurosci. 2016. 1;25:167-8. doi:10.1016/j.jocn.2015.10.003.
  • Omer SB, Malani P, Del Rio C. The COVID-19 Pandemic in the US: A Clinical Update. JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association. 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.5788. Pageviews Analysis Tool, 2020. https://pageviews.toolforge.org. Accessed 25-30 May 2020.
  • Priedhorsky R, Osthus D, Daughton AR, Moran KR, Generous N, Fairchild G, et al. Measuring global disease with Wikipedia: Success, failure, and a research agenda. In: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, CSCW. 2017. doi:10.1145/2998181.2998183.
  • Roy D, Tripathy S, Kar SK, Sharma N, Verma SK, Kaushal V. Study of knowledge, attitude, anxiety & perceived mental healthcare need in Indian population during COVID-19 pandemic. Asian J Psychiatr. 2020. doi:10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102083.
  • Sohrabi C, Alsafi Z, O’Neill N, Khan M, Kerwan A, Al-Jabir A, et al. World Health Organization declares global emergency: A review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19). International Journal of Surgery. 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.02.034.
  • Tausczik Y, Faasse K, Pennebaker JW, Petrie KJ. Public Anxiety and Information Seeking Following the H1N1 Outbreak: Blogs, Newspaper Articles, and Wikipedia Visits. Health Commun. 2012. doi:10.1080/10410236.2011.571759.
  • Tizzoni M, Panisson A, Paolotti D, Cattuto C. The impact of news exposure on collective attention in the United States during the 2016 Zika epidemic. PLoS Comput Biol. 2020. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007633.
  • Viégas FB, Wattenberg M, Kriss J, Van Ham F. Talk before you type: Coordination in Wikipedia. In: Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 2007. doi: 10.1109/HICSS.2007.511.
  • Wikipedia, 2020. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org.
  • WHO. (2020), “WHO Director-General ’s remarks at the media briefing on 2019-nCoV on 11 February”, WHO Director General’s Statement.
  • World Health Organization (WHO). (2020), Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation report – 51. 2020 March 11. Available from URL https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200311-sitrep-51-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=1ba62e57_10. Accessed 24 May 2020.
  • Worldometers, 2020. COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic. Available from URL https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries. Accessed 20 May 2020.
There are 23 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Health Care Administration
Journal Section Research articles
Authors

Adem Doğaner 0000-0002-0270-9350

Project Number -
Publication Date December 31, 2020
Published in Issue Year 2020 Volume: 6 Issue: 3

Cite

Vancouver Doğaner A. The Role of Wikipedia in providing information on coronavirus to Societies during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Mid Blac Sea J Health Sci. 2020;6(3):316-24.

Cited By

Early days of the pandemic—The association of economic and socio-political country characteristics with the development of the COVID-19 death toll
PLOS ONE
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256736
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