 From Heroes to Scoundrels: Exploring the effects of online campaigns celebrating frontline workers on COVID-19 outcomesEfstathios Polyzos, Anestis Fotiadis and Tzung-Cheng Huan Technology in Society, 2023, vol. 72, issue C 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. Keywords: Frontliner; Twitter; Sentiment analysis; Random regression forests; Cointegration (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:teinso:v:72:y:2023:i:c:s0160791x23000039 DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102198 Access Statistics for this article Technology in Society is currently edited by Charla Griffy-Brown More articles in Technology in Society from Elsevier |
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