Abstract
Reopening amid the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a battle on social media. The supporters perceived that the lockdown policy could damage the economy and exacerbate social inequality. By contrast, the opponents believed it was necessary to contain the spread and ensure a safe environment for recovery. Anatomy into the battle is of importance to address public concerns, beliefs, and values, thereby enabling policymakers to determine the appropriate solutions to implement reopening policy. To this end, we investigated over 1.5 million related Twitter postings from April 17 to May 30, 2020. With the aid of natural language processing (NLP) techniques and machine learning classifiers, we classified each tweet into either a “supporting” or “opposing” class and then investigated the public perception from temporal and spatial perspectives. From the temporal dimension, we found that both political and scientific news that were extensively discussed on Twitter led to the perception of opposing reopening. Further, being the first mover with full reopen adversely affected the public reaction to reopening policy, while being the follower or late mover resulted in positive responses. From the spatial dimension, the correlation and regression analyses suggest that the state-level perception was very likely to be associated with political affiliation and health value.
Highlights
A novel SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) that emerged in December 2019 has spread worldwide and become a pandemic [1]
Building on the existing body of knowledge relative to the temporal and spatial analysis for online public opinions, this study aims to explore the potential of social media data (Twitter postings) to investigate online perceptions on reopening policy and demonstrate how the nature of the opinions varies according to the temporal and spatial characteristics
The goal of this study is to provide policymakers insights to understand the perception emerged on social media and its association with geodemographic factors
Summary
A novel SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) that emerged in December 2019 has spread worldwide and become a pandemic [1]. As of June 10, 2021, more than 33.4 million cases and 598,000 deaths were reported in the United States, and the number of new cases is still high [2]. As the stay-at-home orders took effect in early April 2020, thousands of workforces were shut down, sports events were canceled, and universities and schools moved online. Beginning in mid-April, news media reported that anti-lockdown protests erupted across U.S states [3]. Debates surrounding the necessities of lockdown orders and the appropriate time to reopen.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
