Social Media User Behavior and Emotions during Crisis Events

Mingyun Gu, Haixiang Guo, Jun Zhuang, Yufei Du and Lijin Qian
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Mingyun Gu: College of Economics and Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Haixiang Guo: College of Economics and Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Jun Zhuang: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, University at Buffalo, SUNY 317 Bell Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA
Yufei Du: College of Economics and Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Lijin Qian: College of Economics and Management, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 9, 1-21

Abstract: The wide availability of smart mobile devices and Web 2.0 services has allowed people to easily access news, spread information, and express their opinions and emotions using various social media platforms. However, because of the ease of joining these sites, people also use them to spread rumors and vent their emotions, with the social platforms often playing a facilitation role. This paper collected more than 190,000 messages published on the Chinese Sina-Weibo platform to examine social media user behaviors and emotions during an emergency, with a particular research focus on the “Dr. Li Wenliang” reports associated with the COVID-19 epidemic in China. The verified accounts were found to have the strongest interactions with users, and the sentiment analysis revealed that the news from government agencies had a positive user effect and the national media and trusted experts were more favored by users in an emergency. This research provides a new perspective on trust and the use of social media platforms in crises, and therefore offers some guidance to government agencies.

Keywords: social media; information dissemination; sentiment analysis; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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