@inproceedings{c85218141f444a4b84393b76eff3d4fd,
title = "Government communication and Internet responses: profile of Prime Minister Kri{\v s}jānis Kariņ{\v s} in selected digital media users{\textquoteright} comments during the COVID-19 pandemic",
abstract = "Perceptions play a pivotal role in assessment ofefficiency of government communication. Informed by thestrategic narrative conceptual framework this study looks atperception of government communication in Internetcomments during three essential dates in conquering theCOVID-19 pandemic in Latvia: introduction of emergencysituations on March 12 and November 6, 2020, andintroduction of a curfew on December 29, 2020. The studyuncovers how often and how the main spokesperson ingovernment communication – the Prime Minister of LatviaKri{\v s}jānis Kariņ{\v s} – is framed in comments of three onlinenews media in Latvia (Apollo, Delfi, Tvnet) in Latvian andRussian. Using a digital tool for online comments analysis -the Index of Internet Aggressiveness (IIA), a data set iscreated of 244 comments, containing a key word “Kariņ{\v s}” invarious cases in Latvian and Russian. Qualitative contentanalysis is applied to extract and to compare the frequencyof appearance and the framing of Kariņ{\v s} over the course ofthe pandemic in Latvia. The findings reveal that Kariņ{\v s}appears in comments significantly more after news inLatvian than in Russian, and has been commented five timesmore in Delfi than in Tvnet and Apollo together. Thecomments in Latvian are more aggressive than in Russian,and their emotional tone increases towards the end of 2020.In majority of comments the framing is negative involvingattributes of irresponsibility, superficiality, indecisivenessand danger; yet positively framed rigidity and decisiveness ofKariņ{\v s} can be observed too.IIA is an online comment analysis tool, incorporating amachine learning program, which analyses users{\textquoteright} commentson news on online news sites according to pre-selectedkeywords to grasp the commenters{\textquoteright} verbal aggressiveness. InMarch 2021 the IIA data set consists of ~25.08 millioncomments; ~ 616.62 million word usage in writtencommenting and ~ 1357.40 thousand news.",
keywords = "COVID-19, audience perception, internet comments, Kariņ{\v s}, Latvia",
author = "Vineta Kleinberga",
note = "Funding Information: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science, Republic of Latvia, as part of the project “Life with COVID-19: Evaluation of overcoming the coronavirus crisis in Latvia and recommendations for societal resilience in the future” [grant number VPP-COVID-2020/1-0013]. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Vineta Kleinberga. Published by Rezekne Academy of Technologies.; 13th International Scientific and Practical Conference {"}Environment. Technology. Resources{"} ; Conference date: 17-06-2021 Through 18-06-2021",
year = "2021",
month = jun,
day = "17",
doi = "10.17770/etr2021vol2.6571",
language = "English",
volume = "2",
series = "Vide. Tehnologija. Resursi - Environment, Technology, Resources",
publisher = "Rēzeknes Tehnoloģiju akadēmija",
pages = "78--83",
booktitle = "Vide. Tehnoloģija. Resursi : 13. starptautiskās zinātniski praktiskās konferences materiāli",
address = "Latvia",
url = "https://dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/936725.html",
}