From Heroes to Scoundrels: Exploring the effects of online campaigns celebrating frontline workers on COVID-19 outcomes

Efstathios Polyzos; Anestis Fotiadis; Tzung-Cheng Huan

doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102198

From Heroes to Scoundrels: Exploring the effects of online campaigns celebrating frontline workers on COVID-19 outcomes

Technol Soc. 2023 Feb:72:102198. doi: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102198. Epub 2023 Jan 21.

Authors

Efstathios Polyzos¹, Anestis Fotiadis¹, Tzung-Cheng Huan²

Affiliations

¹ College of Business, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi Campus, United Arab Emirates.
² Department of Marketing and Tourism Management, National Chiayi University, Taiwan.

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: Cointegration; Frontliner; Random regression forests; Sentiment analysis; Twitter.