A longitudinal sentiment analysis of Sinophobia during COVID-19 using large language models

TL;DR

This study uses large language models to analyze how Sinophobic sentiments on Twitter evolved during COVID-19, revealing correlations with pandemic surges and highlighting the influence of political narratives and misinformation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel LLM-based framework for longitudinal sentiment analysis of social media data related to Sinophobia during COVID-19.

Findings

Significant correlation between Sinophobic tweets and COVID-19 case surges

Prevalence of negative sentiments like annoyance and denial

Lack of empathetic sentiments compared to previous COVID-19 studies

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated xenophobia, particularly Sinophobia, leading to widespread discrimination against individuals of Chinese descent. Large language models (LLMs) are pre-trained deep learning models used for natural language processing (NLP) tasks. The ability of LLMs to understand and generate human-like text makes them particularly useful for analysing social media data to detect and evaluate sentiments. We present a sentiment analysis framework utilising LLMs for longitudinal sentiment analysis of the Sinophobic sentiments expressed in X (Twitter) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show a significant correlation between the spikes in Sinophobic tweets, Sinophobic sentiments and surges in COVID-19 cases, revealing that the evolution of the pandemic influenced public sentiment and the prevalence of Sinophobic discourse. Furthermore, the sentiment analysis revealed a predominant presence of negative sentiments, such as annoyance and denial, which underscores the impact of political narratives and misinformation shaping public opinion. The lack of empathetic sentiment which was present in previous studies related to COVID-19 highlights the way the political narratives in media viewed the pandemic and how it blamed the Chinese community. Our study highlights the importance of transparent communication in mitigating xenophobic sentiments during global crises.