Sports Fans' Behavior on Twitter: A Big Data Analysis of Sentiments in the 2018 World Cup Final

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to determine the words that came to the forefront of social media posts by fans for the 2018 World Cup Final, the most frequently used expressions, and the emotional tendencies of the fans. For this purpose, 56,877 tweets written in English on Twitter on the 2018 World Cup Final were extracted by the “R-Project” software and analyzed. According to the analysis results, it was concluded that a total of twenty positive statements were used with the highest frequency by fans, and it was also determined that the positive emotional trend was dominant compared to the negative trend, irrespective of what the result of the match was. In conclusion, it may be claimed that the perceptions and reactions of the fans regarding the World Cup Final are different from club matches at national level, and that mostly positive emotions came to the forefront.

Keywords

• Sentiment Analysis
• Twitter
• World Cup
• Football
• R Project

Taraftarların Twitter'daki Davranışları: 2018 Dünya Kupası Final Maçı Taraftar Duygularının Büyük Veri Analizi

Öz

Bu çalışmanın amacı, 2018 Dünya Kupası Final Maçında taraftar paylaşımında öne çıkan kelimeleri, bu sözlerle birlikte en sık kullanılan ifadeleri ve taraftarların duygusal eğilimlerini belirlemektir. Bu amaçla, İngilizce yazılan ve 2018 Dünya Kupası Final Maçı'nda Twitter'da paylaşılan 56.877 adet tweet, “The R-Project” adı verilen yazılım üzerinden alınarak analizleri yapıldı. Analiz sonuçlarına göre taraftar paylaşımında en yüksek sıklıkta kullanılan toplam yirmi ifadenin olumlu olduğu; final maçının sonucu ne olursa olsun, olumlu duygusal eğilimin olumsuz eğilime göre baskın olduğu da belirlendi. Sonuç olarak taraftarların Dünya Kupası Final Maçı ile ilgili algılarının ve tepkilerinin kulüpler arası ulusal düzeydeki yarışmalardan farklı olduğu ve daha çok olumlu duyguların ön plana çıktığı iddia edilebilir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Duygu Analizi
• Twitter
• World Cup
• Football
• R Project

Kaynakça

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