TY - GEN
T1 - COVID-19 News and Audience Aggressiveness: Analysis of News Content and Audience Reaction During the State of Emergency in Latvia (2020–2021)
AU - Rozukalne, Anda
AU - Kleinberga, Vineta
AU - Grūzītis, Normunds
N1 - Conference code: 13
PY - 2021/6/17
Y1 - 2021/6/17
N2 - This research focuses on the interrelation between news content on COVID-19 of three largest online news sites in Latvia (delfi.lv, apollo.lv, tvnet.lv) and the audience reaction to the news in the Latvian and Russian channels during the state of emergency. By using a tool for audience behaviour analysis, the Index of the Internet Aggressiveness (IIA), for analysis of audience comments, the study aims to uncover how and whether news about COVID-19 affect the level of audience aggressiveness. The study employs two data collection methods: news content analysis and IIA data analysis, in which ten index peaks are selected in each of the two emergency periods (spring 2020, fall and winter 2020/21). The study data consists of content analysis of 400 news items and analysis of ~80,000 comments, identifying the level of aggressiveness, the number and structure of comment keywords. The results show that the level of public aggressiveness is only partially formed by the attitude towards COVID-19 news: less than half of the most aggressively commented news is devoted to information about COVID-19. An increase in the level of aggressiveness of the audience of online news sites can be observed at the end of 2020 and at the beginning of 2021 when it is higher than over the course of 2020.IIA is an online comment analysis platform, which analyses user-generated comments on news on online news sites according to pre-selected keywords, allowing to grasp the dynamics of commenters’ verbal aggressiveness. In addition, IIA exploits a machine learned classifier to recognize not only potentially aggressive keywords but also to analyse the entire comments. In January 2021, the IIA data set consists of ~24.89 million comments (~611.97 million words) added to ~1.34 million news articles.
AB - This research focuses on the interrelation between news content on COVID-19 of three largest online news sites in Latvia (delfi.lv, apollo.lv, tvnet.lv) and the audience reaction to the news in the Latvian and Russian channels during the state of emergency. By using a tool for audience behaviour analysis, the Index of the Internet Aggressiveness (IIA), for analysis of audience comments, the study aims to uncover how and whether news about COVID-19 affect the level of audience aggressiveness. The study employs two data collection methods: news content analysis and IIA data analysis, in which ten index peaks are selected in each of the two emergency periods (spring 2020, fall and winter 2020/21). The study data consists of content analysis of 400 news items and analysis of ~80,000 comments, identifying the level of aggressiveness, the number and structure of comment keywords. The results show that the level of public aggressiveness is only partially formed by the attitude towards COVID-19 news: less than half of the most aggressively commented news is devoted to information about COVID-19. An increase in the level of aggressiveness of the audience of online news sites can be observed at the end of 2020 and at the beginning of 2021 when it is higher than over the course of 2020.IIA is an online comment analysis platform, which analyses user-generated comments on news on online news sites according to pre-selected keywords, allowing to grasp the dynamics of commenters’ verbal aggressiveness. In addition, IIA exploits a machine learned classifier to recognize not only potentially aggressive keywords but also to analyse the entire comments. In January 2021, the IIA data set consists of ~24.89 million comments (~611.97 million words) added to ~1.34 million news articles.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118676962&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.17770/etr2021vol2.6564
DO - 10.17770/etr2021vol2.6564
M3 - Conference contribution
VL - 2
T3 - Vide. Tehnologija. Resursi - Environment, Technology, Resources
SP - 141
EP - 147
BT - Vide. Tehnoloģija. Resursi : 13. starptautiskās zinātniski praktiskās konferences materiāli
PB - Rēzeknes Tehnoloģiju akadēmija
CY - Rēzekne
T2 - 13th International Scientific and Practical Conference "Environment. Technology. Resources"
Y2 - 17 June 2021 through 18 June 2021
ER -