Global Sentiments Surrounding the COVID-19 Pandemic on Twitter: Analysis of Twitter Trends.

ABSTRACT:

Background

With the World Health Organization's pandemic declaration and government-initiated actions against coronavirus disease (COVID-19), sentiments surrounding COVID-19 have evolved rapidly.

Objective

This study aimed to examine worldwide trends of four emotions-fear, anger, sadness, and joy-and the narratives underlying those emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Over 20 million social media twitter posts made during the early phases of the COVID-19 outbreak from January 28 to April 9, 2020, were collected using "wuhan," "corona," "nCov," and "covid" as search keywords.

Results

Public emotions shifted strongly from fear to anger over the course of the pandemic, while sadness and joy also surfaced. Findings from word clouds suggest that fears arou

SUBMITTER: Lwin MO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7247466 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature