COVID-19 policies and the arising of debate on twitter

Abstract

This study focuses on the analysis of contacts and communications on Twitter concerning pandemic policies. The goal is both show mobilization processes rising from the web and detect main actors, themes, and contents within the European context. Through a mixed method procedure, we tried to identify the main themes and most relevant communities, the main users, the most relevant topics and languages, and the underlined meanings and differences related to languages (as proxies of areas). Monitoring the communication on 3 main topics (“no-mask”, “covid-19”, “greenpass”), we noticed the weight of the gap between the government's attempts to communicate information motivating measures geared toward managing the crisis and the perceptions of private users. These perceptions spread through the web with such force the more the emotional, ironic, or polemical plane weighs. In this sense, online communication could be considered a tool for understanding the weight of the interaction between the institutional, social, and private dimensions, with effects on the social construction of identities. Digital communication is becoming an element of this process. The paper describes the “reassuring” role played by the digital community in the construction of ontological forms of security resulting from the construction of a shared digital culture. Results show the emergence of digital communities, structured on reference hubs and standing out from the detected phenomenon, prevalence of idioms and even language structures. The relevant role of the emotional (French), ironic (Italian), protest (English) component is confirmed, but also the changing and fluid structure of the debate and the co-presence of many parallel discussion communities.