Expression and Evolution of Public Opinion in Social Network VKontakte During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This article analyzes comments on the social network VKontakte during the COVID-19 pandemic with the aim of uncovering public opinion and sentiments. A discursive model of comments on official materials related to the pandemic was constructed using the qualitative data analysis software tool Nvivo12. The Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) was employed for this purpose. As a result of a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of "hot spots" of discussion, it was found that during the pandemic, comments in the VKontakte group "StopCoronavirus.rf" addressed several thematic directions: "political measures for pandemic prevention," "protection of the civilian population from the pandemic," "medical prevention of virus spread," "the pandemic and people's livelihoods," "credibility of epidemiological data," "pandemic trends," and "spiritual support and encouragement." Among these, users expressed the greatest concern regarding subtopics related to people's behavior in preventing the virus's spread, the veracity of government-released data, the scale of testing, as well as the reliability of vaccines, online education, and stress caused by the pandemic. As the pandemic progressed, the frequency of discussions on specific topics fluctuated. Negative sentiments within society exhibited a tendency to rise, then decrease, and subsequently rise again, mirroring the overall trends of increasing and decreasing morbidity rates across Russia.