Who are Physicians Talking to on Social Media? Needed Data Literacy and Visual Literacy of the Assumed Audience(s) of COVID-19 Vaccination Posts

The manuscript focuses on the partial results of a project on the effectiveness of social media posts by medical experts to encourage people to be vaccinated against COVID-19. It demonstrates how the authors of the posts used scientific data, visualizations thereof, and sources of information. 220 posts from 49 profiles of doctors selected purposively qualified for the study and were examined using a content analysis technique. The article explores the results obtained for the selected categories. 54% of the analyzed posts did not present data at all. The rest cited the vaccine efficacy data the most frequently. Foreign scientific research and the Polish government or public agencies dominated data sources. The most frequently linked profiles were these of other experts and the visual elements such as photos and infographics. The results are discussed from the perspective of the data literacy and visual literacy (as dimensions of digital literacy) of the assumed audiences.