The COVID-19 outbreak impacted almost all the aspects of ordinary life. In this context, social networks quickly started playing the role of a sounding board for the content produced by people. Studying how dramatic events affect the way people interact with each other and react to poorly known situations is recognized as a relevant research task. Since automatically identifying country-based COVID-19 social posts on generalized social networks, like Twitter and Facebook, is a difficult task, in this work we concentrate on Reddit megathreads, which provide a unique opportunity to study focused reactions of people by both topic and country. We analyze specific reactions and we compare them with a “normal” period, not affected by the pandemic; in particular, we consider structural variations in social posting behavior, emotional reactions under the Plutchik model of basic emotions, and emotional reactions under unconventional emotions, such as skepticism, particularly relevant in the COVID-19 context.

How dramatic events can affect emotionality in social posting: The impact of covid-19 on reddit / Basile, V.; Cauteruccio, F.; Terracina, G.. - In: FUTURE INTERNET. - ISSN 1999-5903. - ELETTRONICO. - 13:2(2021), pp. 1-32. [10.3390/fi13020029]

How dramatic events can affect emotionality in social posting: The impact of covid-19 on reddit

Cauteruccio F.
;
2021-01-01

Abstract

The COVID-19 outbreak impacted almost all the aspects of ordinary life. In this context, social networks quickly started playing the role of a sounding board for the content produced by people. Studying how dramatic events affect the way people interact with each other and react to poorly known situations is recognized as a relevant research task. Since automatically identifying country-based COVID-19 social posts on generalized social networks, like Twitter and Facebook, is a difficult task, in this work we concentrate on Reddit megathreads, which provide a unique opportunity to study focused reactions of people by both topic and country. We analyze specific reactions and we compare them with a “normal” period, not affected by the pandemic; in particular, we consider structural variations in social posting behavior, emotional reactions under the Plutchik model of basic emotions, and emotional reactions under unconventional emotions, such as skepticism, particularly relevant in the COVID-19 context.
2021
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11566/296446
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