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Using Twitter to Track Immigration Sentiment During Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

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  • Rowe, Francisco

    (University of Liverpool)

  • Mahony, Michael
  • Graells-Garrido, Eduardo
  • Rango, Marzia
  • Sievers, Niklas

Abstract

In 2020, the world faced an unprecedented challenge to tackle and understand the spread and impacts of COVID- 19. Large-scale coordinated efforts have been dedicated to understand the global health and economic implications of the pandemic. Yet, the rapid spread of discrimination and xenophobia against specific populations, particularly migrants and individuals of Asian descent, has largely been neglected. Understanding public attitudes towards migration is essential to counter discrimination against immigrants and promote social cohesion. Traditional data sources to monitor public opinion – ethnographies, interviews, and surveys – are often limited due to small samples, high cost, low temporal frequency, slow collection, release and coarse spatial resolution. New forms of data, particularly from social media, can help overcome these limitations. While some bias exists, social media data are produced at an unprecedented temporal frequency, geographical granularity, are collected globally and accessible in real-time. Drawing on a data set of 30.39 million tweets and natural language processing, this paper aims to measure shifts in public sentiment opinion about migration during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Results show an increase of migration-related Tweets along with COVID-19 cases during national lockdowns in all five countries. Yet, we found no evidence of a significant increase in anti-immigration sentiment, as rises in the volume of negative messages are offset by comparable increases in positive messages. Additionally, we presented evidence of growing social polarisation concerning migration, showing high concentrations of strongly positive and strongly negative sentiments.

Suggested Citation

  • Rowe, Francisco & Mahony, Michael & Graells-Garrido, Eduardo & Rango, Marzia & Sievers, Niklas, 2021. "Using Twitter to Track Immigration Sentiment During Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic," SocArXiv pc3za, Center for Open Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:pc3za
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/pc3za
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Arenas Gaitán, Jorge & Ramírez-Correa, Patricio E., 2023. "COVID-19 and telemedicine: A netnography approach," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    2. Giacomo Manetti & Carmela Nitti & Marco Bellucci, 2022. "The accountability of Search and Rescue NGOs," Working Papers - Business wp2022_02.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    3. Rowe, Francisco & Neville, Ruth & González-Leonardo, Miguel, 2022. "Sensing Population Displacement from Ukraine Using Facebook Data: Potential Impacts and Settlement Areas," OSF Preprints 7n6wm, Center for Open Science.
    4. Nadejda Komendantova & Dmitry Erokhin & Teresa Albano, 2023. "Misinformation and Its Impact on Contested Policy Issues: The Example of Migration Discourses," Societies, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-16, July.

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