Table 1.
Comparing Sentiment Polarity, Emotion and Predominant Topics Among the Most and Least Retweeted Tweetsa
| Most Predominant Emotion | Most Predominant Topic | 2nd Most Predominant Topic | 3rd Most Predominant Topic | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subset of (re)tweets | Polarity, Median (IQR) | Emotion | N (%) | Topic | N (%) | Topic | N (%) | Topic | N (%) |
| Complete (n = 126 049) | −0.25 (−0.75 to 0.50) | Fear | 62 424 (49.5) | Economic and Political Impact | 20 385 (16.5) | Government Response | 16 038 (13.0) | Outbreak/Pandemic | 15 847 (12.8) |
| Zero retweets (n = 72 615) | 0 (−0.75 to 0.5) | Fear | 37 095 (51.1) | Economic and Political Impact | 13 784 (19.4) | Government Response | 9967 (14.1) | Outbreak/Pandemic | 9221 (13.0) |
| Top 10% retweets (n = 12 604) | −0.25 (−0.75 to 0.50) | Fear | 5506 (43.7) | Quarantine Efforts | 1695 (13.4) | Outbreak/Pandemic | 1552 (12.3) | Prevention | 1498 (11.9) |
| Top 1% retweets (n = 1260) | −0.25 (−0.75 to 0.50) | Fear | 533 (42.3) | Quarantine Efforts | 168 (13.3) | Prevention | 163 (12.9) | Outbreak/Pandemic | 147 (11.7) |
| Top 0.1% retweets (n = 126) | 0 (−0.50 to 0.50) | Fear | 49 (41.3) | Quarantine Efforts | 19 (15.1) | Healthcare Provision | 19 (15.1) | Index Cases by Country | 15 (11.9) |
Abbreviations: IQR, interquartile range.
aSentiment is shown as median and IQR. Emotion and the top 3 most predominant topics are shown as total number and percentage of tweets.