Dünya Sağlık Örgütü’nün Covid-19 Pandemisi Öncesi ve Sırasında Twitter Kullanımı: Tweetlerin Duygu ve Metin Analizi

Year 2022, Volume: 9 Issue: 17, 235 - 254, 31.12.2022

Sadettin Demirel Uğur Gündüz

https://doi.org/10.56133/intermedia.1163032

Abstract

Bir kitlesel öz iletişim biçimi olarak sosyal medya dijital yapısı, erişim imkanı ve zaman mekan bağımsızlığı gibi nitelikleri sayesinde hem kullanıcıların hem de organizasyonların, bilgi alma, yayma, enformasyon ve mesajları yeniden dağıtıma sok- ması ve izlemesi için büyük potansiyel ve fırsatlar sunmaktadır. Özellikle kriz durumlarında sosyal medyanın bu gücünü kul- lanabilmek halka doğru bilgi sağlamakla birlikte yanıltıcı iddia ve söylentilerin engellemesinde önemli bir yönetim pratiğidir. Bu varsayımdan hareketle, bu çalışma Dünya Sağlık Örgütü’nün (WHO) Covid-19 pandemisi öncesinde ve pandemi sırasında paylaştığı tweetlerin genel duygu derecelerini ölçmeyi ve karşılaştırmayı amaçlamaktadır. Tweetlerin genel duygu değerleriyle birlikte, tweetlerin içeriği, WHO’nun pandemi öncesinde ve sırasında Twitter kullanımı karşılaştırmalı olarak sağlık iletişimi ve kriz yönetimi çerçevesinde değerlendirilmiştir. Çalışmamız kapsamında R istatistik yazılımı ve ilişkili metin madenciliği kü- tüphaneleri WHO’nun 2018 ve 2021 yılları arasında paylaştığı 34.673 adet tweet üzerinde kullanılarak duygu analizi ve metin analizi uygulanmıştır. Bu çalışma WHO tweetlerini yakın okumaya, duygu ve metin analizine tabi tutarak aynı zamanda kriz yönetim taktiklerini, pandemi öncesi ve sırasında izlenen sağlık politikalarını göstermektedir. Bulgular, WHO’nun pandemi sırasında tweetlerinde kasıtlı olarak olumlu mesajları (sözler ve duygular) tercih ederken, halkı bilgilendirmek ve infodemiyi en aza indirmek için daha fazla tweet paylaştığını ortaya koymaktadır.

Keywords

COVID-19, Sağlık İletişimi, Kriz İletişimi, Twitter, Duygu Analizi, Metin Analizi

World Health Organization’s Twitter Use Before and During Covid-19 Pandemic: Sentiment and Textual Analysis of Tweets

Abstract

Social media as a form of mass self-communication offers a great deal of potential and opportunities for users and organizations to get, diffuse, redistribute, and monitor information and messages due to its features of accessibility, digitality, and time-space independence. Especially during a crisis, being able to harness the power of social media is an im- perative management practice not only to provide the public with accurate information but also to deter misleading claims and rumors regarding the subject. Based on this assumption, this study aims to measure and compare the overall sentiment of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) tweets before and during the coronavirus pandemic. Along with the overall senti- ment of tweets, the contents of tweets, and the WHO’s Twitter use practices before and during the pandemic were assessed in the framework of crisis management and health communication. Within the scope of our study, the WHO’s 34.673 tweets between 2018 and 2021 were examined with sentiment and textual analysis. The study also indicates the health policies be- fore and during the covid19 pandemic and crisis management tactics by analyzing and close reading the WHO’s tweets. The findings reveal that the WHO posted more tweets to inform the public and minimize infodemic while it deliberately preferred positive messages (words and sentiments) in its tweets during the pandemic.

Keywords

COVID-19, Health Communication, Crisis Communication, Twitter, Sentiment Analysis, Text Analysis.

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