COVID-19 IN AMERICA: TWITTER ANALYSIS
Digital Humanities 199 Project
Justin Suarez
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Overview of The Visualizations and Discussion of the Data
CORONAVIRUS CASES ACROSS THE WORLD
Taking a Quick Global Glimpse
All throughout the world, people and governments have been trying to slow down the infections of COVID-19 as much as possible. As can be seen by the map, the number of infections are ever growing and that they are affecting multiple areas at different rates from one another. With the ongoing pandemic, the numbers are still going to climb, albeit, there is much progress in slowing down the rate in which infections are occurring. Since this virus is all across the world, people must always keep in mind that the issues surrounding COVID-19 are not isolated to their own countries. Instead, this pandemic necessitates a global thought process and plan to solve.
COVID-19 NUMBERS ACROSS THE WORLD
Closer Look at the Number of Infections and Deaths
Although the distribution of coronavirus cases is not the same throughout the world, people have to be aware of the total number of cases of COVID-19 to understand the full scope of this pandemic. These graphics are useful for people to examine because we would be able to understand the different waves of the virus as they come. Many people would say that the first major wave of the virus has already passed and that we are either in a second wave right now or will be going through one soon. While the total number of deaths caused by COVID-19 are receding, there is a significant increase in the amount of new cases being recorded. Of course, this may be a result from many countries implementing phases of their re-openings. At the same time, they must be closely monitored so that the virus does not have a resurgence and overwhelm the capacity of hospitals to take care of their patients.
HOW ABOUT THE UNITED STATES?
Take A Closer Look at United States Cases
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WORD CLOUDS
#DONTDRINKBLEACH
Since this hashtag was coming up at a time where there was a lot of public ridicule and skepticism of the United States President, many of the most prominent words would be associated hashtags such as "TrumpisaLaughingStock,"Â "DisinfectantDonnie," and "TrumpisNotaDoctor." At the same time, people can see how people are joking on this matter especially with using words like bleach, lysol, drink.
#FIREFAUCI
The #FireFauci hashtag came around when Donald Trump was getting a lot of support from conservatives who were tired of Dr. Fauci was prioritizing public safety over politics and were adamant on getting him fire and even going to the length of calling for the firing of Dr. Birx, another top public health official comparable to Farcical. However, there were also strong resistance against Fauci's supporters as they called for "savefauci" and calling this firing "wrong." With that being said, most people were just talking about this in a neautral manner as though they are shocked that this is even happening.
#HOWMUCHLONGERTILL
With this hashtag coming to rise in the early stages of the quarantine and lock down period, people were starting to be wary and wanting to return to a normal life with words such as "normal," "realize," and "finally." Most notably, there are three top terms that are seemingly related as they are "plandemic," "plannedemic", and "planneddemic" which all sort of implies that this pandemic was specifically designed and executed. Maybe not coincidentally, there was a 26 minute conspiracy video uploaded early May called "Plandemic" which spouted conspiracy theories and misinformation about the pandemic such as COVID-19 was laboratory created and masks activated one's virus.
#HOWTOSPENDYOURSTIMULUS
COVID-19 caused the global recession that have hurt economies and forced companies to lay off people to save money. Hence, unemployment rates soared and many people just struggling to survive during this extremely difficult time. On March 27th, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law which disbursed $2 trillion in order to support businesses with loans and people with stimulus checks of up to $1200 per adult. Quickly enough, people went to twitter to talk about how they would be using that money with the most used terms would be "buy," "pay," "save," "spend," and "bills." This signifies that while some people may be using the money for buy on personal expenses, there is a substantial amount of people using this money to pay for bills.
#INJECTDISINFECTANT
Alongside with #DontDrinkBleach, the #InjectDisinfectant embodies the same instance on Twitter as a separate hashtag that was used alongside similar ones such as #TrumpisNotaDoctor. In this hashtag, people on Twitter were mocking the President's implications on injecting disinfectants as a treatment against COVID-19.
#TRUMPCOVIDFAILS
Throughout this entire situation, Trump and his Administration are criticized for not doing enough and even when there are attempts, they were not enacted quickly enough. Thus, this hashtag is an embodiment of all of that as could be signified with three of the collocated hashtags #TrumpisTheWorstPresidentEver, #TrumpBurialPits, and #TrumpLiedPeopleDied. There was also a mention of "TrumpVirus" which is a nod towards the earlier remarks made of the President about the "Chinese Virus." Finally, I would like to point out that people were tagging news outlets such as NY Times, Fox News, and OANN in order to get media's attention on these issues.
#WHATTRUMPHASTAUGHTUS
In the background of all of this happening, there is a national election occurring for the presidential office of the United States. While Trump may not have predicted a global pandemic to erupt during his presidency, he has to come to face reality that he is leading America throughout this crisis and people have their eyes on him. In this regard, people are starting to get upset and frustrated with the state of the country. This is reflected in the tweets and in the word cloud with top terms being used such as "people," "president," "democrats,", and "vote" are being invoked. As the national elections become closer and closer, people will remember this time period as crucial points to lead the country and they saw the president not rising to the occasion.
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS
#DONTDRINKBLEACH
This sentiment analysis shows that people are speaking about #DontDrinkBleach is almost equal negative and positive sentiments, but with a slight leaning towards positive sentiments. This would be confusing just by itself. However, I posit that there are many jokes on this hashtag that could be associated with positive sentiments on their own, but as a collective, they are actually having negative implications. Hence, people are still talking about this instance in a negative light even if they may be using positive words.
#FIREFAUCI
The implication of Trump firing Fauci, one of the leading public health official alongside Dr. Birx, with an ongoing pandemic still happening has lead to public outcry and response. People turned to Twitter to voice their concerns and frustrations. Given this, the sentiments of this hashtag do tend to be much more negatively associated.
#HOWMUCHLONGERTILL
As people start to reflect in their time in quarantine about what they miss and what they are frustrated about, I think it is natural for this hashtag to appear similar on both ends of negative and positive sentiments. People are clearly expressing their thoughts and opinions in hopes to get back to a semblance of normal.
#HOWTOSPENDYOURSTIMULUS
Overall, the topic of using stimulus checks would more so be associated with being neutral than anything else. Personally, I am not surprised that the graph is leaning to show more positive sentiments as I would assume people would be relieved to be able to pay their bills or excited that they would be able to obtain new luxuries.
#INJECTDISINFECTANT
This sentiment analysis graph is interesting as this would state that a majority of people were talking about this subject in a positive manner with positive sentiments overall. However, I would want to make the claim that many people were lightheartedly joking about this subject hence the bias of positive sentiments compared to negative ones. I do not believe that the sentiment analysis tool I am using is able to detect satire.
#TRUMPCOVIDFAILS
Inherently, the hashtag is about the failures of Trump in regards to COVID-19. Of course, this hashtag and tweets would appear to be mostly negative. People are understandably upset and frustrated with ways in which the situation was developing.
#WHATTRUMPHASTAUGHTUS
Given the state of the country and the terms people were using to describe the inadequate response from the Trump Administration, a majority of people have expressed negative sentiment compared to a portion of people using positive sentiments. This makes sense given that this hashtag was created to critque the President.
