COVID-19 and communication: A sentiment analysis of US state governors' official press releases.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

This study examines the contents of official communication from United States governors' offices related to the COVID-19 pandemic to assess patterns in communication and to determine if they correlate with trends for COVID cases and deaths.

Methods

We collected text data for all COVID-19 related press releases between March 1 and December 31, 2020 from the US governors' office websites in all 50 states. An automated parsing and sentiment analyzer assessed descriptive statistics and trends in tone, including positivity and negativity.

Results

We included a total of 7,720 press releases in this study. We found that both positive and negative sentiments were homogenous across states at the beginning of the pandemic but became heterogeneous as the pandemic evol

SUBMITTER: Tano M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9426878 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature