Exploring Pandemics Events on Twitter by Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modelling

At the end of 2019, while the world was being hit by the COVID-19 virus and, consequently, was living a global health crisis, many other pandemics were putting humankind in danger. The role of social media is of paramount importance in these kinds of contexts because they help health systems to cope...

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Main Authors: Zhikang Qin, Elisabetta Ronchieri
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-11-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/23/11924
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author Zhikang Qin
Elisabetta Ronchieri
author_facet Zhikang Qin
Elisabetta Ronchieri
author_sort Zhikang Qin
collection DOAJ
description At the end of 2019, while the world was being hit by the COVID-19 virus and, consequently, was living a global health crisis, many other pandemics were putting humankind in danger. The role of social media is of paramount importance in these kinds of contexts because they help health systems to cope with emergencies by contributing to conducting some activities, such as the identification of public concerns, the detection of infections’ symptoms, and the traceability of the virus diffusion. In this paper, we have analysed comments on events related to cholera, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, influenza, malaria, Spanish influenza, swine flu, tuberculosis, typhus, yellow fever, and Zika, collecting 369,472 tweets from 3 March to 15 September 2022. Our analysis has started with the collection of comments composed of unstructured texts on which we have applied natural language processing solutions. Following, we have employed topic modelling and sentiment analysis techniques to obtain a collection of people’s concerns and attitudes towards these pandemics. According to our findings, people’s discussions were mostly about malaria, influenza, and tuberculosis, and the focus was on the diseases themselves. As regards emotions, the most popular were fear, trust, and disgust, where trust is mainly regarding HIV/AIDS tweets.
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spelling doaj.art-600dad312d044c9cbf61f29c1f793d9b2023-11-24T10:28:04ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172022-11-0112231192410.3390/app122311924Exploring Pandemics Events on Twitter by Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic ModellingZhikang Qin0Elisabetta Ronchieri1Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, ItalyDepartment of Statistical Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, ItalyAt the end of 2019, while the world was being hit by the COVID-19 virus and, consequently, was living a global health crisis, many other pandemics were putting humankind in danger. The role of social media is of paramount importance in these kinds of contexts because they help health systems to cope with emergencies by contributing to conducting some activities, such as the identification of public concerns, the detection of infections’ symptoms, and the traceability of the virus diffusion. In this paper, we have analysed comments on events related to cholera, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, influenza, malaria, Spanish influenza, swine flu, tuberculosis, typhus, yellow fever, and Zika, collecting 369,472 tweets from 3 March to 15 September 2022. Our analysis has started with the collection of comments composed of unstructured texts on which we have applied natural language processing solutions. Following, we have employed topic modelling and sentiment analysis techniques to obtain a collection of people’s concerns and attitudes towards these pandemics. According to our findings, people’s discussions were mostly about malaria, influenza, and tuberculosis, and the focus was on the diseases themselves. As regards emotions, the most popular were fear, trust, and disgust, where trust is mainly regarding HIV/AIDS tweets.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/23/11924epidemicsTwitternatural language processingtopic modellingsentiment analysisARI
spellingShingle Zhikang Qin
Elisabetta Ronchieri
Exploring Pandemics Events on Twitter by Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modelling
Applied Sciences
epidemics
Twitter
natural language processing
topic modelling
sentiment analysis
ARI
title Exploring Pandemics Events on Twitter by Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modelling
title_full Exploring Pandemics Events on Twitter by Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modelling
title_fullStr Exploring Pandemics Events on Twitter by Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modelling
title_full_unstemmed Exploring Pandemics Events on Twitter by Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modelling
title_short Exploring Pandemics Events on Twitter by Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modelling
title_sort exploring pandemics events on twitter by using sentiment analysis and topic modelling
topic epidemics
Twitter
natural language processing
topic modelling
sentiment analysis
ARI
url https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/12/23/11924
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