# Upholding dignity during a pandemic via Twitter

## TL;DR

This paper explores how people used Twitter to discuss dignity during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on themes like rights, care for essential workers, and the treatment of older adults.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel cross-national analysis of dignity discourse on Twitter during the pandemic, highlighting specific themes and concerns related to vulnerable populations.

## Key findings

- Dignity discourse on Twitter emphasized five major themes, including upholding dignity for essential workers and at-risk populations.
- Messages about older adults highlighted issues like disproportionate death tolls and poor conditions in long-term care homes.
- The analysis revealed concerns about dignity decline due to pandemic-related disruptions like suspended meal delivery services.

## Abstract

Background: This article investigates how people invoked the concept of dignity on Twitter during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a secondary focus on mentions of dignity in the context of older adults and ageing.
Methods: We report the results of a study that combines text analytic and interpretive methods to analyze word clusters and dignity-based themes in a cross-national sample of 1,946 original messages posted in 2020.
Results: The study finds that dignity discourse on Twitter advances five major themes: (a) recognize dignity as a fundamental right, (b) uphold the dignity of essential workers, (c) preserve the dignity of at-risk populations, (d) prevent cascading disasters that exacerbate dignity's decline, and (e) attend to death, dignity, and the sanctity of life.
Conclusions: Moreover, messages focusing on older adults lamented the disproportionate death toll, the terrible circumstances in long-term care homes, the added impact of suspended meal delivery services and the status of older people living below the poverty line.