Healthc Inform Res.  2020 Oct;26(4):335-343. 10.4258/hir.2020.26.4.335.

Determining Public Opinion of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea and Japan: Social Network Mining on Twitter

• Lee H
• Noh EB
• Choi SH
• Zhao B
• Nam EW

• KMID: 2508626
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4258/hir.2020.26.4.335

Abstract

Objectives
This study analyzed the perceptions and emotions of Korean and Japanese citizens regarding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It examined the frequency of words used in Korean and Japanese tweets regarding COVID-19 and the corresponding changes in their interests.
Methods
This cross-sectional study analyzed Twitter posts (Tweets) from February 1, 2020 to April 30, 2020 to determine public opinion of the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea and Japan. We collected data from Twitter (https://twitter.com/), a major social media platform in Korea and Japan. Python 3.7 Library was used for data collection. Data analysis included KR-WordRank and frequency analyses in Korea and Japan, respectively. Heat diagrams, word clouds, and rank flowcharts were also used.
Results
Overall, 1,470,673 and 4,195,457 tweets were collected from Korea and Japan, respectively. The word trend in Korea and Japan was analyzed every 5 days. The word cloud analysis revealed “COVID-19”, “Shinchonji”, “Mask”, “Daegu”, and “Travel” as frequently used words in Korea. While in Japan, “COVID-19”, “Mask”, “Test”, “Impact”, and “China” were identified as high-frequency words. They were divided into four categories: social distancing, prevention, issue, and emotion for the rank flowcharts. Concerning emotion, “Overcome” and “Support” increased from February in Korea, while “Worry” and “Anxiety” decreased in Japan from April 1.
Conclusions
As a result of the trend, people’s interests in the economy were high in both countries, indicating their reservations on the economic downturn. Therefore, focusing policies toward economic stability is essential. Although the interest in prevention increased since April in both countries, the general public’s relaxation regarding COVID-19 was also observed.

Keyword

Pandemics, Data Mining, Coronavirus, Communicable Diseases, Social Networking

Figure

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  Figure 1 Web crawling flow chart.

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  Figure 2 Heat diagram on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) word trend in Korea from February 1, 2020 to April 30, 2020.

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  Figure 3 Heat diagram on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) word trend in Japan from February 1, 2020 to April 30, 2020.

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  Figure 4 Word clouds based on tweets in Korea (A) and Japan (B).

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  Figure 5 Rank flowcharts by four categories (social distancing, prevention, issue, and emotion) in Korea and Japan.

Reference

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