Rapid Perception of Public Opinion in Emergency Events through Social Media
Publication: Natural Hazards Review
Volume 23, Issue 2
Abstract
Due to its near-real-time crowdsourcing nature, social media demonstrates a great potential of rapidly reflecting public opinion during emergency events. However, systematic approaches are still desired to perceive public opinion in a rapid and reliable manner through social media. This research proposes two quantitative metrics—the fraction of event-related tweets (FET) and the net positive sentiment (NPS)—to examine the intensity and direction dimensions of public opinion. While FET is modeled through normalizing population size differences, NPS is modeled through a Bayesian-based method to incorporate uncertainty from social media information. To illustrate the feasibility and applicability of the proposed FET and NPS, we studied public opinion on society reopening amid COVID-19 for the entire United States and four individual states (i.e., California, New York, Texas, and Florida). The reflected trends of public opinion have been supported by the reopening policy timeline, the number of COVID-19 cases, and the economy characteristics. This research is expected to assist policy makers in obtaining a prompt understanding of public opinion from the intensity and direction dimensions, thereby facilitating timely and responsive policy making in emergency events.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request: population data and all codes. Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are proprietary or confidential in nature and may only be provided with restrictions: only tweet IDs can be provided according to the Twitter Developer Agreement.
Acknowledgments
This study is funded by the Thomas F. and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust and the National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 2027521, 1841520, and 1835507). Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Thomas F. and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust and the National Science Foundation.
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Published In
Natural Hazards Review
Volume 23 • Issue 2 • May 2022
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 15, 2021
Accepted: Nov 19, 2021
Published online: Dec 20, 2021
Published in print: May 1, 2022
Discussion open until: May 20, 2022
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