The World Health Organization in a Post-COVID-19 Era: An Exploration of Public Engagement on Twitter

Thierry Warin

CIRANO Working Papers from CIRANO

Abstract: This article analyses the conversations on Twitter related to the World Health Organization (WHO). We collect the text of the discussions as well as the metadata associated with each tweet. Our dataset is exhaustive as it includes all the tweets produced by WHO. Likes, retweets, and replies capture the level of engagement. The goal is to quantify the balance of likes, retweets, and replies, also known as “ratios”, and study their dynamics as proxy for the collective engagement in response to WHO’s communications. Our results demonstrate a higher engagement of the public receiving the information pushed by WHO. This engagement translates into a more balanced reaction with still a more likely favorable opinion vis-à-vis WHO, but with also more challenges. This protocol based on quantitative measures to serve as a proxy to the legitimacy concept seems to hold its promises. In particular, we also perform a simple sentiment analysis to check the robustness of our conclusions. Cet article analyse les conversations sur Twitter relatives à l'Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS). Nous recueillons le texte des discussions ainsi que les métadonnées associées à chaque tweet. Notre ensemble de données est exhaustif puisqu'il comprend tous les tweets produits par l'OMS. Les mentions " j'aime ", " retweets " et " réponses " permettent de mesurer le niveau d'engagement. L'objectif est de quantifier l'équilibre entre les likes, les retweets et les réponses, également appelés "ratios", et d'étudier leur dynamique comme indicateur de l'engagement collectif en réponse aux communications de l'OMS. Nos résultats démontrent un plus grand engagement du public qui reçoit les informations diffusées par l'OMS. Cet engagement se traduit par une réaction plus équilibrée avec toujours une opinion plus probablement favorable vis-à-vis de l'OMS, mais avec également plus de défis. Ce protocole basé sur des mesures quantitatives pour servir de proxy au concept de légitimité semble tenir ses promesses. Nous effectuons également une analyse simple des émotions afin de vérifier la robustesse de nos conclusions.

Keywords: Legitimacy; multilateralism; natural language processing; world health organization; Légitimité; multilatéralisme; traitement du langage naturel; organisation mondiale de la santé (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-06-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cir:cirwor:2022s-16

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