From Heroes to Scoundrels: Exploring the effects of online campaigns celebrating frontline workers on COVID-19 outcomes

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Technology in Society

Publication Date

1-21-2023

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of online campaigns celebrating frontline workers on COVID-19 outcomes regarding new cases, deaths, and vaccinations, using the United Kingdom as a case study. We implement text and sentiment analysis on Twitter data and feed the result into random regression forests and cointegration analysis. Our combined machine learning and econometric approach shows very weak effects of both the volume and the sentiment of Twitter discussions on new cases, deaths, and vaccinations. On the other hand, established relationships (such as between stringency measures and cases/deaths and between vaccinations and deaths) are confirmed. On the contrary, we find adverse lagged effects from negative sentiment to vaccinations and from new cases to negative sentiment posts. As we assess the knowledge acquired from the COVID-19 crisis, our findings can be used by policy makers, particularly in public health, and prepare for the next pandemic.

ISSN

0160-3274

Publisher

Elsevier BV

First Page

102198

Last Page

102198

Disciplines

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

Frontliner, Twitter, Sentiment analysis, Random regression forests, Cointegration, I18, C14, H12

Indexed in Scopus

no

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Green: A manuscript of this publication is openly available in a repository

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