TY - JOUR
T1 - The Evolution of Public Sentiments During the COVID-19 Pandemic
T2 - Case Comparisons of India, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States
AU - Lwin, May O.
AU - Sheldenkar, Anita
AU - Lu, Jiahui
AU - Schulz, Peter Johannes
AU - Shin, Wonsun
AU - Panchapakesan, Chitra
AU - Gupta, Raj Kumar
AU - Yang, Yinping
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is supported in part by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A∗STAR) under its A∗ccelerate Gap Fund (ETPL/18-GAP050-R20A) and under its Council Strategic Fund (C210415006), in part by the Singapore Ministry of Health's National Medical Research Council under its COVID-19 Research Fund (COVID19RF-005), and in part by the Institute of High Performance Computing, A∗STAR under its Core Fund. The authors would also like to thank Lee Hui Juan Daphne for her assistance in the project.
Funding Information:
This work is supported in part by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) under its A*ccelerate Gap Fund (ETPL/18-GAP050-R20A) and under its Council Strategic Fund (C210415006), in part by the Singapore Ministry of Health’s National Medical Research Council under its COVID-19 Research Fund (COVID19RF-005), and in part by the Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR under its Core Fund. The authors would also like to thank Lee Hui Juan Daphne for her assistance in the project.
Publisher Copyright:
© May O Lwin, Anita Sheldenkar, Jiahui Lu, Peter Johannes Schulz, Wonsun Shin, Chitra Panchapakesan, Raj Kumar Gupta, Yinping Yang.
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - Background: Public sentiments are an important indicator of crisis response, with the need to balance exigency without adding to panic or projecting overconfidence. Given the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have enacted various nationwide measures against the disease with social media platforms providing the previously unparalleled communication space for the global populations. Objective: This research aims to examine and provide a macro-level narrative of the evolution of public sentiments on social media at national levels, by comparing Twitter data from India, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States during the current pandemic. Methods: A total of 67,363,091 Twitter posts on COVID-19 from January 28, 2020, to April 28, 2021, were analyzed from the 5 countries with "wuhan,""corona,""nCov,"and "covid"as search keywords. Change in sentiments ("very negative,""negative,""neutral or mixed,""positive,""very positive") were compared between countries in connection with disease milestones and public health directives. Results: Country-specific assessments show that negative sentiments were predominant across all 5 countries during the initial period of the global pandemic. However, positive sentiments encompassing hope, resilience, and support arose at differing intensities across the 5 countries, particularly in Asian countries. In the next stage of the pandemic, India, Singapore, and South Korea faced escalating waves of COVID-19 cases, resulting in negative sentiments, but positive sentiments appeared simultaneously. In contrast, although negative sentiments in the United Kingdom and the United States increased substantially after the declaration of a national public emergency, strong parallel positive sentiments were slow to surface. Conclusions: Our findings on sentiments across countries facing similar outbreak concerns suggest potential associations between government response actions both in terms of policy and communications, and public sentiment trends. Overall, a more concerted approach to government crisis communication appears to be associated with more stable and less volatile public sentiments over the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.
AB - Background: Public sentiments are an important indicator of crisis response, with the need to balance exigency without adding to panic or projecting overconfidence. Given the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have enacted various nationwide measures against the disease with social media platforms providing the previously unparalleled communication space for the global populations. Objective: This research aims to examine and provide a macro-level narrative of the evolution of public sentiments on social media at national levels, by comparing Twitter data from India, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States during the current pandemic. Methods: A total of 67,363,091 Twitter posts on COVID-19 from January 28, 2020, to April 28, 2021, were analyzed from the 5 countries with "wuhan,""corona,""nCov,"and "covid"as search keywords. Change in sentiments ("very negative,""negative,""neutral or mixed,""positive,""very positive") were compared between countries in connection with disease milestones and public health directives. Results: Country-specific assessments show that negative sentiments were predominant across all 5 countries during the initial period of the global pandemic. However, positive sentiments encompassing hope, resilience, and support arose at differing intensities across the 5 countries, particularly in Asian countries. In the next stage of the pandemic, India, Singapore, and South Korea faced escalating waves of COVID-19 cases, resulting in negative sentiments, but positive sentiments appeared simultaneously. In contrast, although negative sentiments in the United Kingdom and the United States increased substantially after the declaration of a national public emergency, strong parallel positive sentiments were slow to surface. Conclusions: Our findings on sentiments across countries facing similar outbreak concerns suggest potential associations between government response actions both in terms of policy and communications, and public sentiment trends. Overall, a more concerted approach to government crisis communication appears to be associated with more stable and less volatile public sentiments over the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.
KW - communication public health
KW - community health
KW - COVID-19
KW - crisis communication
KW - cross-country comparison
KW - digital literacy
KW - emotion
KW - health information
KW - health literacy
KW - information literacy
KW - perception
KW - public sentiment
KW - sentiment
KW - social media
KW - Twitter
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133453408&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2196/31473
DO - 10.2196/31473
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85133453408
SN - 2564-1891
VL - 2
JO - JMIR Infodemiology
JF - JMIR Infodemiology
IS - 1
M1 - e31473
ER -