Public Opinion Analysis of COVID-19 Transmission in China Based on Weibo Texts (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianlai Chen ◽  
Xiaoyu Zhao ◽  
Gongmian Zeng ◽  
Yang Rong ◽  
Xiang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Regional Analysis ◽  
Time Points ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
Time Point

BACKGROUND Background: The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019 had a huge impact on the world, and netizens also showed great concern about the pandemic situation. OBJECTIVE Objective: To analyze the public opinion trend on the COVID-19 pandemic and netizens’ sentimental attitudes to help grasp the dynamics of public sentiment toward the event and provide a reference for the government and the media to steer public opinion. METHODS Methods: Four time points were selected during the pandemic according to the Weibo Index. Weibo content were grabbed by crawlers. A total of 510,493 Weibo texts were collected. Regional analysis, word frequency statistics and sentiment analysis were conducted based on the Weibo content. RESULTS Results: The pandemic aroused great concern of Internet user. Among the four time points selected, Beijing users had the highest attention(about 9.28%). Wordcloud showed that the words “pneumonia”, “novel coronavirus pneumonia”, “coronavirus”, “case” and “Wuhan” were the main concerns of Weibo users. At the first time point, about 47% of netizens showed negative emotions and it was higher than the percentage of positive emotions (about 35%). But at the time point 2, 3, 4, the netizens with positive emotions accounted for 41%, 51% and 47% respectively, which were significantly greater than those with negative emotions (30%, 26% and 29%). CONCLUSIONS Conclusions: The pandemic caused great concern among netizens with a higher level of concern in economically developed regions. In Weibo users’ posts, words related to COVID-19 and fighting the pandemic were used most frequently during the pandemic. In the early days of the outbreak, netizens were panicked by the outbreak. Over time, the mood of netizens gradually shifted toward confidence and hope.

Who is Setting Emotions? A Comparative Study on Emotion Diffusion in Social Media among Public, Government and Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic in China (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuhuan Zhou ◽  
Yi Wang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Time Point

BACKGROUND During the COVID-19 outbreak, social media served as the main platform for information exchange, through which the Chinese government, media and public would spread information. At the same time, a variety of emotions interweave, and the public emotions would also be affected by the government and media. OBJECTIVE This study aims to investigate the types, trends and relationships of emotional diffusion in Chinese social media among the public, the government and the media under the pandemic of COVID-19 (December 30,2019, to July 1,2020) . METHODS In this paper, Python 3.7.0 and its data crawling framework Scrapy 1.5.1 are used to write a web crawler program to search for super topics related to COVID-19 on Sina Weibo platform of different keywords . Then, we used emotional lexicon to analyze the types and trends of the public, government and media emotions on social media. Finally cross-lagged regression was applied to build the relationships of different subjects’ emotions. RESULTS The highlights of our study are threefold: (1) The public, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic in China; (2) Emotional diffusion shows a certain change over time, and negative emotions are obvious in the initial phase of the pandemic, with the development of the pandemic, positive emotions surpass negative emotions and remain stable. (3)The impact among the three main emotions with the period as the time point is weak, while the impact of emotion with the day as the time point is relatively obvious. The emotions of the public and the government impact each other, and the media emotions can guide the public emotions. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study of comparing pubic, government and media emotions on the social media during COVID-19 pandemic in China. The pubic, the government and the media mainly diffuse positive emotions during the pandemic. And the government and the media have better effect on short-term emotional guidance. Therefore, when the pandemic suddenly occurs, the government and the media should intervene in time to solve problems and conflicts and diffuse positive and neutral emotions. In this regard, the government and the media can play important roles through social media in the major outbreaks. At the theoretical level, this paper takes China's epidemic environment and social media as the background to provide one of the explanatory perspectives for the spread of emotions on social media. At the some time, because of this special background, it can provide comparison and reference for the research on internet emotions in other countries.

scholarly journals When election expectations fail: Polarized perceptions of election legitimacy increase with accumulating evidence of election outcomes and with polarized media

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0259473
Author(s):  
Marrissa D. Grant ◽  
Alexandra Flores ◽  
Eric J. Pedersen ◽  
David K. Sherman ◽  
Leaf Van Boven
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Media ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
Dissonance Theory ◽  
Over Time

The present study, conducted immediately after the 2020 presidential election in the United States, examined whether Democrats’ and Republicans’ polarized assessments of election legitimacy increased over time. In a naturalistic survey experiment, people (N = 1,236) were randomly surveyed either during the week following Election Day, with votes cast but the outcome unknown, or during the following week, after President Joseph Biden was widely declared the winner. The design unconfounded the election outcome announcement from the vote itself, allowing more precise testing of predictions derived from cognitive dissonance theory. As predicted, perceived election legitimacy increased among Democrats, from the first to the second week following Election Day, as their expected Biden win was confirmed, whereas perceived election legitimacy decreased among Republicans as their expected President Trump win was disconfirmed. From the first to the second week following Election Day, Republicans reported stronger negative emotions and weaker positive emotions while Democrats reported stronger positive emotions and weaker negative emotions. The polarized perceptions of election legitimacy were correlated with the tendencies to trust and consume polarized media. Consumption of Fox News was associated with lowered perceptions of election legitimacy over time whereas consumption of other outlets was associated with higher perceptions of election legitimacy over time. Discussion centers on the role of the media in the experience of cognitive dissonance and the implications of polarized perceptions of election legitimacy for psychology, political science, and the future of democratic society.

scholarly journals Media’s Portrayal of Homosexuality and Rape as a Reflection of Cultural Acceptance?

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina C. Touitou
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Video Clip ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Cultural Taboos ◽  
Short Video ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military

The study focuses on media’s portrayal of homosexuality as a reflection of cultural acceptance in the society. The first representation of gay men in the United States to a national audience occurred in 1967 with the airing of a documentary titled “The Homosexuals,” which is filled with harmful, derogatory stereotypes etc. The fact that homosexual characters were mostly guest stars as opposed to leading characters also suggests that gay activist were taking a less radical approach by attempting to improve acceptance of homosexual. In Nigeria, homosexuality is a taboo, abnormal and not accepted. The media can and has with some degree of success helped break down the cultural taboos associated with sensitive sexual topics and bridge some gaps in our sexual knowledge. The paper adopted empirical secondary data, and employed cultivation theory. It proved that the media have power in shaping people’ believe and perception, and can form or modify the public opinion in different ways depending on what the objective is. For example, Pakistani media influenced the opinion against the Taliban in Swat by repeated telecast of a video clip showing whipping of a woman by a Taliban. Before that, the public opinion over the military action against the Taliban was divided, but repeated telecast of this short video clip changed the public opinion overnight in favor of the government to take action. The paper recommended that the media should take a firm stand, not playing two-edge sword on  the reportage of homosexuality, and should remain a ‘watchdog’ and the ‘mirror’ of the society.

scholarly journals Nutri-score saga in France: how food industry actors tried to influence public health policies and public opinion

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mélissa Mialon ◽  
Chantal Julia ◽  
Serge Hercberg
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Corporate Political Activity ◽  
Ample Evidence ◽  
The Media ◽  
Expected Benefits ◽  
The Government ◽  
Health Objectives

In October 2017 in France, the government recognized the Nutri-Score front-of-pack labelling system as the only official system to be used on food products. As of July 2018, a total of 70 companies had implemented it voluntarily. There is ample evidence to support its use, and multiple expected benefits in terms of public health. We present here an essay discussing about the Nutri-Score saga. A policy dystopia model, from the literature on tobacco industry tactics, was adapted to classify the corporate political activity of the food industry during the development and implementation of the Nutri-Score. We conclude that, despite public commitments made by some industry actors to implement this system, the food industry is still strongly trying to influence policy and public opinion in the country. There are and will be many hurdles along the way, with food industry members trying to influence regulation at the European level, and building alliances with the media, among others, in France. Hopefully, public health objectives will prevail over commercial interests, in France and abroad.

Individual Differences in Cognitive Reappraisal Predict Emotional Experience Prior to Achievement Situations

2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania Balzarotti ◽  
Valentina Chiarella ◽  
Maria Rita Ciceri
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Indirect Effect ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Longitudinal Design ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Cognitive Reappraisal ◽  
Positive And Negative Affect ◽  
Time Points

Abstract. In the present study, we examined whether individual differences in the use of cognitive reappraisal predict the experience of more positive and less negative emotions prior to an evaluative task, as well as whether reappraisal is associated with better performance. In a longitudinal design, 130 students were asked to report their spontaneous use of reappraisal as well as the emotions experienced at three time points prior to an academic exam. Results showed that the use of cognitive reappraisal measured when students began to study predicted less negative and more positive emotions in the following two weeks. Further, positive and negative affect were significant predictors of the grade achieved. Finally, cognitive reappraisal had a significant indirect effect on the grade students achieved. These findings suggest that cognitive reappraisal can be effective in regulating emotions while approaching evaluative stressors.

Crisis Response Framework and Public Policy Response

2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 396-412
Author(s):  
Shyamli Singh
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
Global Citizens ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
The Face ◽  
Huge Impact ◽  
Global Catastrophe ◽  
The Government ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Covid-19 brought an unprecedented and challenging time all over the globe. With the unpreparedness and lack of awareness regarding the global pandemic, it soon became an international concern. From loss of lives to loss of livelihood, the pandemic had a huge impact on global citizens and various nation-states. Unlike any other crisis, Covid-19 too pushed the government and its people to restructure and reform their framework, especially in the face of such an unprecedentedly adverse situation. This article highlights the need of a crisis response framework and formulation of agile public policy during such a global catastrophe. Taking the novel coronavirus as the epicentre demanding a rapid response formulation of Government of India, the article delineates upon strategic intervention of the government towards Covid-19 and the need of a crisis response framework for the future.

Irom Sharmila’s Struggle against Military Repression: A Critique

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-181
Author(s):  
Nandita Haksar
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Way

This article argues that although Irom Sharmila’s 16-year-old fast from November 2000 to August 2016 has earned her the status of an icon of non-violent protest, yet she did not seek these appellations; her only aim was to put moral pressure on the government to repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. The article seeks to assess the efficacy of Irom Sharmila’s protest and how far it has helped or hindered in mobilizing public opinion against the Act. It propounds that the publicity around Irom Sharmila put her on a pedestal and trapped her in her own image, made invisible entire histories of sufferings of people in the northeast, including Manipur, and their struggles against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. The gains of many struggles and efforts were wiped out of the collective memory of the nation and the only image of Manipur was this frail woman with a tube hanging from her nose. The article also argues that there is a kind of fetish in the way the media celebrates non-violence without reference to the political context.

scholarly journals “Mischievous Uncles” as Rule Breakers: Intersectional Stereotypes and Risk Perceptions During the Coronavirus Pandemic in Turkey

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 205630512094926
Author(s):  
Didem Türkoğlu ◽  
Meltem Odabaş
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Risk Groups ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Working Age ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

Responses to crises can highlight and exacerbate class inequalities. Seemingly neutral policy measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic that aim to protect high-risk groups can lead to a shift in the public discourse that deprives citizens of their agency based not only on their age but also their class. In this article, we focus on the case of Turkey, one of the countries with the fastest growth of novel coronavirus cases in late March 2020, where the government introduced a curfew for people over the age of 65, while actively encouraging the rest of the working-age population to stay at home. An intersectional analysis of the Twitter campaign #StayatHome (# EvdeKal) and the media outlets’ news coverage of the policy implementation show that both platforms circulated human-interest stories of working-class men who defy the curfew predominantly. Both the stories and Twitter user comments often defined the subjects of those stories as rule-breakers and, therefore, as “mischievous uncles.” They became the scapegoats, while upper and middle classes avoided the label. These findings have implications for the framing of policy outcomes and welfare provisions as well as oppositional politics that push for the expansion of labor protections during the pandemic.

scholarly journals Communicating About COVID-19 Crisis: Content Analysis of Image Repair Strategy by The Malaysian Government and Its Association With Public Opinion on Social Media (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasaai Masngut ◽  
Emma Mohamad
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Image Repair ◽  
Significant Positive Association ◽  
Image Repair Theory ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Malaysian Government ◽  
Image Repair Strategies

BACKGROUND Good leadership image in times of health emergency is paramount to ensure public’s confidence towards government’s ability to manage a crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented challenge for governments worldwide to manage and communicate about the pandemic effectively, while maintaining public trust. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to identify types of image repair strategies utilized by the Malaysian government in their communication about COVID-19. The study then analyzes public opinion towards these communication on social media. METHODS Content analysis was employed to analyze 120 media statements and 382 comments retrieved from Facebook page of two mainstream newspapers, Berita Harian and The Star. These samples were collected within a span of 6 weeks prior and during the implementation of Movement Control Order by the Malaysian Government. The media statements were analyzed according to Benoit’s Image Repair Theory to categorize strategies employed in government communication. Public opinion responses were measured using modified lexicon-based VADER sentiment analysis to categorize positive, negative and neutral statements. RESULTS The Malaysian government employed all 5 strategies of the Image Repair Theory in their communication in both newspapers. The strategy most utilized was the reduce offensiveness strategy (62.5%). This is followed by corrective action strategy (25.0%), evading responsibilities (8.3%), denial (3.3%) and mortification (0.8%). This study also found multiple sub-strategies in government media statements including denial, shifting blame, provocation, defeasibility, accident, good intention, bolstering, minimization, differentiation, transcendence, attacking accuser, resolve problem, prevent recurrence, admit wrongdoing and apologize. This study also found that 64.7% of public opinion were positive towards media statements made by the Malaysian government. This study also revealed a significant positive association between Image Repair Strategies utilized by the Malaysian government and public opinion. CONCLUSIONS Communication in the media may assist the government to foster positive support from the public. Suitable image repair strategies could garner positive public responses and help build trust in times of crisis.

scholarly journals China Public Psychology Analysis About COVID-19 Under Considering Sina Weibo Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Pan ◽  
Ren-jie Wang ◽  
Wan-qiang Dai ◽  
Ge Huang ◽  
Cheng Hu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Classification Model ◽  
Test Results ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Decay Period ◽  
Auc Value ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Control

COVID-19 not only poses a huge threat to public health, but also affects people’s mental health. Take scientific and effective psychological crisis intervention to prevent large-scale negative emotional contagion is an important task for epidemic prevention and control. This paper established a sentiment classification model to make sentiment annotation (positive and negative) about the 105,536 epidemic comments in 86 days on the official Weibo of People’s Daily, the test results showed that the accuracy of the model reached 88%, and the AUC value was greater than 0.9. Based on the marked data set, we explored the potential law between the changes in Internet public opinion and epidemic situation in China. First of all, we found that most of the Weibo users showed positive emotions, and the negative emotions were mainly caused by the fear and concern about the epidemic itself and the doubts about the work of the government. Secondly, there is a strong correlation between the changes of epidemic situation and people’s emotion. Also, we divided the epidemic into three period. The proportion of people’s negative emotions showed a similar trend with the number of newly confirmed cases in the growth and decay period, and the extinction period. In addition, we also found that women have more positive emotional performance than men, and the high-impact groups is also more positive than the low-impact groups. We hope that these conclusions can help China and other countries experiencing severe epidemics to guide publics respond.

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