AI Approach on Identifying Change in Public Sentiment for Major Events: Dubai Expo 2020

Abstract

Existing research in identifying changes in public sentiment for major events faces limitations in capturing the intricacies of temporal changes, especially with large-scale data and diverse linguistic nuances. This study addresses this problem, with a particular focus on the globally acclaimed Dubai Expo 2020. The methodology employed in this research introduces a groundbreaking approach by leveraging advanced data engineering techniques on a massive corpus of 118,025 Tweets obtained from diverse users across 60 languages, covering the period from April 2021 to March 2023. The study pioneers the application of artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), and Large Language Models (LLMs) for sentiment analysis and topic modeling on Twitter discourse. Through the meticulous data engineering process, including language detection, dynamic translation, and sentiment analysis, the research identifies subtle yet statistically significant changes in public sentiment, as evidenced by ANOVA testing (p=0.018 in average positive sentiment, p=0.004 in average neutral sentiment, and p=0.005 in average negative sentiments). Additionally, the study innovatively extracts and analyzes support-related Tweets, revealing distinct phases in temporal domains (pre-Expo, Expo, Post-Expo1, and Post-Expo2) and yielding 11,116 support-related tweets. The application of NLP techniques further uncovers 19 topics from UAE-related Tweets, providing a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic landscape of public sentiment over a two-year period. This research contributes significantly to the field by offering a novel and comprehensive framework for analyzing public sentiment, particularly in the context of major events, and sheds light on its broader implications for event management and public perception analysis.