Social network analysis of Twitter data from Pakistan during COVID-19

Abstract

Purpose – The use of social media has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media platforms provide opportunities to share news, ideas and personal stories. Twitter is used by citizens in Pakistan to respond and comment on emerging news stories and events. However, it is not known whether Twitter played a positive or negative role in spreading updates and preventive messages during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The purpose of this study is to analyse content from Twitter during the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach – NodeXL was used to retrieve data using the keyword وائرس کورونا (written in Urdu and which translates to Coronavirus). The first data set (Case Study 1) was based on 10,284 Twitter users from the end of March. The second data set (Case Study 2) was based on 10,644 Twitter users from the start of April. The theoretical lens of effective message framing was used to classify the most retweeted content on Twitter. Findings – Twitter was used for personal and professional projections and included certain tweets included political motives even during the unfolding health crisis. There appeared to be very few successful attempts to use Twitter as a tool for health awareness and risk communication. The empirical findings indicate that the most retweeted messages were gain-framed and can be classified as personal, informative and political in nature. Originality/value – The present study provides insights likely to be of interest to researchers, health organizations, citizens, government and politicians that are interested in making more effective use of social media for the purposes of health promotion. The authors also provides novel insights into the key topics of discussions, websites and hashtags used by Pakistani Twitter users during the COVID-19.

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This item has been embargoed for a period. During the embargo please use the Request a Copy feature at the foot of the Repository record to request a copy directly from the author. You can only request a copy if you wish to use this work for your own research or private study. Publisher policy allows this work to be made available in this repository. Published in Information Discovery and Delivery, by Emerald. The original publication is available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-03-2021-0022. This author accepted manuscript is deposited under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC) licence. This means that anyone may distribute, adapt, and build upon the work for non-commercial purposes, subject to full attribution. If you wish to use this manuscript for commercial purposes, please contact permissions@emerald.com

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-03-2021-0022

Repository URI

http://hdl.handle.net/1893/33637