Social emotions under the spread of COVID-19 using social media

The spread of COVID-19, the so-called new coronavirus, is currently having an enormous social and economic impact on the entire world. Under such a circumstance, the spread of information about the new coronavirus on SNS is having a significant impact on economic losses and social decision-making. In this study, we investigated how the new type of coronavirus has become a social topic in Japan, and how it has been discussed. In order to determine what kind of impact it had on people, we collected and analyzed Japanese tweets containing words related to the new corona on Twitter. First, we analyzed the bias of users who tweeted. As a result, it is clear that the bias of users who tweeted about the new coronavirus almost disappeared after February 28, 2020, when the new coronavirus landed in Japan and a state of emergency was declared in Hokkaido, and the new corona became a popular topic. Second, we analyzed the emotional words included in tweets to analyze how people feel about the new coronavirus. The results show that the occurrence of a particular social event can change the emotions expressed on social media. © 2020, Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence. All rights reserved.