Exploring the Public Reaction to COVID-19 News on Social Media in Portugal

TL;DR

This study analyzes over 61,000 COVID-19 news headlines on Portuguese social media to understand public attention and emotional responses during 2020, highlighting social media's role in crisis communication.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of public reactions to COVID-19 news on social media in Portugal, focusing on attention cycles and emotional responses during the pandemic.

Findings

Public attention to COVID-19 news fluctuated over time.

Emotional responses varied with the pandemic's progression.

Social media served as a key platform for public expression during crises.

Abstract

The outburst and proliferation of the COVID-19 pandemic, together with the subsequent social distancing measures, have raised massive challenges in almost all domains of public and private life around the globe. The stay-at-home movement has pushed the news audiences into social networks, which, in turn, has become the most prolific field for receiving and sharing news updates, as well as for public expression of opinions, concerns and feelings about the pandemic. Public opinion is a critical aspect in analysing how the information and events impact peoples lives, and research has shown that social media data may be promising in understanding how people respond to health risks and social crisis, which are the feelings they tend to share and how they are adapting to unforeseen circumstances that threaten almost all societal spheres. This paper presents results from a social media analysis of 61532 news headlines posted by the major daily news outlet in Portugal, Sic Noticias, on Facebook, from January to December 2020, focusing on the issues attention cycle and audiences emotional response to the COVID news outburst. This work adds to the emergent body of studies examining public response to the coronavirus pandemic on social media data.