Politics Go “Viral”
A Computational Text Analysis of the Public Attribution and Attitude Regarding the Covid-19 Crisis and Governmental Responses on Twitter
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12170572 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Weilu Zhang (0000-0003-1555-6725, University of Missouri, corresponding author), L Hu (0000-0003-0304-882X, Washington and Lee University), Jihye Park (0000-0001-5139-7229, University of Missouri) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 790-811 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science Computer Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0894-4393 • E-ISSN: 1552-8286 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/08944393211053743 |
| OpenAlex | W4206555648 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 46 |
The U.S. confronts an unprecedented public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, in the presidential election year in 2020. In such a compound situation, a real-time dynamic examination of how the general public ascribe the crisis responsibilities taking account to their political ideologies is helpful for developing effective strategies to manage the crisis and diminish hostility toward particular groups caused by polarization. Social media, such as Twitter, provide platforms for the public’s COVID-related discourse to form, accumulate, and visibly present. Meanwhile, those features also make social media a window to monitor the public responses in real-time. This research conducted a computational text analysis of 2,918,376 tweets sent by 829,686 different U.S. users regarding COVID-19 from January 24 to May 25, 2020. Results indicate that the public’s crisis attribution and attitude toward governmental crisis responses are driven by their political identities. One crisis factor identified by this study (i.e., threat level) also affects the public’s attribution and attitude polarization. Additionally, we note that pandemic fatigue was identified in our findings as early as in March 2020. This study has theoretical, practical, and methodological implications informing further health communication in a heated political environment
Attribution · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Crisis communication · Hostility · Ideology · Pandemic · Polarization (electrochemistry · Political science · Politics · Presidential system · Public health · Public relations · Social media · Law · Medicine · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology
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Social perception and phenomenal causality.
Polarization and public health
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Entropy and diversity
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Unpacking the black box
Examining risk and crisis communications of government agencies and stakeholders during early-stages of Covid-19 on Twitter
Echo Chamber or Public Sphere? Predicting Political Orientation and Measuring Political Homophily in Twitter Using Big Data
The Dynamics of Public Attention
The Other “Authoritarian Personality”
The unedited public sphere
Social Identity, Self-Categorization, and the Communication of Group Norms
Journalists’ Use of Social Media to Infer Public Opinion
Cognitive Aspects of Prejudice 1
Donald Trump and vaccination
Political ideology, exploration of novel stimuli, and attitude formation
Using social and behavioural science to support Covid-19 pandemic response
No Demos? Identities and Public Spheres in the Euro Crisis
Authoritarian Personality
Americans, Not Partisans
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The Origins and Meaning of Liberal/Conservative Self-Identifications
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Social Identity Theory and Party Identification
The Secret Lives of Liberals and Conservatives
Affect, Not Ideology
Social Identity, Selective Exposure, and Affective Polarization
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1.67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |