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Mapping Discourse Reframing: A Multi-Layer Network Approach to Italian HPV Vaccine Discourse on X (2010-2024)

Paper · 2026 · Lorella Viola

Summary

The paper addresses a known weakness of network-based studies of online misinformation. Early skeptical or conspiratorial narratives tend to be rare and scattered, so conservative graph filtering often deletes them before they can be studied. Viola proposes a two-layer framework built on hashtag co-occurrence networks, applied to Italian-language posts on X about the HPV vaccine from 2010 to 2024, split into three epochs.

  • A conservative "core" layer is used for community detection and reveals the stable thematic coalitions.
  • A permissive "coverage" layer keeps the low-frequency long tail.
  • Fringe hashtags are then assigned to core coalitions according to their weighted connections.

When checked against seed tweets that were hand-annotated as expressing skepticism or conspiracy beliefs, the projection retrieves many more problematic long-tail hashtags without making the coalition structure harder to read. Over time, skepticism moves from the periphery to a dominant core, and the HPV debate is reframed as a political and conspiratorial conflict. The method gives a reusable way to spot emerging information disorder before it becomes structurally prominent.

Key points

  • Data: X posts retrieved via #HPV, #Gardasil, #papillomavirus and #papilloma, filtered with lang=it plus a post-hoc language check. The posts span three epochs: 2010–2014, 2015–2019 and 2020–2024.
  • Layers: the core layer uses k-core ≥ 2 filtering, and the coverage layer keeps every edge with count ≥ 1. The pipeline adds cross-epoch community matching and augmented projection with explicit support scores.
  • Validation: seed-based enrichment is normalised by community size. In 2020–2024, seed markers concentrate in a few coherent communities rather than spreading across the whole network.
  • Trajectory: in the first epoch, institutional and prevention discourse forms the core. In the second, controversy coalitions mature and compete with it. In the third, the information-disorder coalition becomes dominant, while institutional discourse loses its structural centrality.
  • Limitations: results depend on X API constraints, on hashtag-only signals and on parameter choices. Seed selection may introduce bias, and no inter-coder agreement has been reported yet.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

 Fields, topics and concepts

📚 Shelves 5The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).Social Sciences · 1,772 worksMedicine · 241 worksCommunication · 97 worksCultural Studies · 20 worksEpidemiology · 7 works

🧭 Topics 1Research subjects and languages the work is about.Discourse analysis · 466 works

Cite

Cite as Lorella Viola. 2026. Mapping Discourse Reframing: A Multi-Layer Network Approach to Italian HPV Vaccine Discourse on X (2010-2024). Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Information Disorder (InDor) @ LREC 2026.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.63317/3ta4stb52s7k

@inproceedings{viola2026mapping,
  title = {{Mapping Discourse Reframing: A Multi-Layer Network Approach to Italian HPV Vaccine Discourse on X (2010-2024)}},
  author = {Lorella Viola},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Information Disorder (InDor) @ LREC 2026},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.63317/3ta4stb52s7k},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.63317/3ta4stb52s7k}
}

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