Political Leaders Communication: A Twitter Sentiment Analysis during Covid-19 Pandemic

Authors

  • Manpreet Kaur (SCOPUS ID: 57219133737); GNA University
  • Rajesh Verma (SCOPUS ID: 57206717729); Lovely Professional University
  • Sandeep Ranjan (SCOPUS ID: 57205247039); Apeejay Institute of Management & Engineering Technical Campus

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26623/themessenger.v13i1.2585

Keywords:

Sentiment Analysis, State Political Leaders, India, Covid-19, Twitter

Abstract

The pandemic made it critical for political leaders to intensify measures in fight against Covid-19 and one such measure was building trust among public through communication. With exponential growth in reach of social media, while state political leaders have progressively used internet for election campaigns, limited studies have explored as to how leaders use this medium to communicate during crisis, what kind of information do they share and what are common issues addressed. This paper, using qualitative research design, analyses Indian political leaders communication on Twitter. Sentiment Analysis was carried to identify and extract subjective information in leaders communication using 29 Indian political leaders, where in 12.128 tweets were extracted. Subjectivity scores depicted more than half of leaders had shared fact-based information, and Polarity scores indicated that almost 90% of leaders shared positive or neutral information thus leading to an inference that leaders share more of facts based and positive or neutral information rather than statements in form of opinions.

Author Biographies

  • Manpreet Kaur, (SCOPUS ID: 57219133737); GNA University

    1). Dr. Manpreet Kaur is an Assistant Professor at GNA University, Punjab, India. Her research area is Political Marketing and Social Media Marketing. She has published 6 research papers, 1 case study and 1 chapter in edited book. She has won national case study competition organised by Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi in association with ET cases. She has presented papers in international as well national conferences including IIMs and IITs.

    2).  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8646-9616

  • Rajesh Verma, (SCOPUS ID: 57206717729); Lovely Professional University

    1). Dr. Rajesh Verma is Professor & Dean in School of Business, Lovely Professional University. He has got more than 15 years of experience in academics, research and industry. He has guided 03 Ph.D and 09 M.Phil students and has also worked on a research project at Northampton Business School, University of Northampton, U.K. selected under UK-India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI). He has edited 02 books, authored 04 books; published 20 research papers in Journals, 06 Case studies and 10 book chapters in refereed edited books apart from presenting several research papers in National & International conferences. He has been a resource person for FDPs in several B-Schools in area of Case Based Teaching, Case Writing, and Business Research Methods etc. He has attended around 25 relevant training programmes/courses and FDPs in IIMs and other institutions of repute. He has been instrumental in providing consultancy to company like Coca Cola, Connect excetera. His research interest is critical perspective on application of marketing theory, business process restructuring, business models and advances in social media and its use.

    2).  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2363-552X

  • Sandeep Ranjan, (SCOPUS ID: 57205247039); Apeejay Institute of Management & Engineering Technical Campus

    1). Dr. Sandeep Ranjan is presently working as Associate Professor in CSE cum Dean Engineering in APJ Institute of Management & Engineering Technical Campus, Jalandhar, Punjab. He cleared GATE in 2014 and earned Ph.D in CSE from IKGPTU in 2019 in the field of social network sentiment analysis. He has been teaching engineering disciplines since 2006 and worked with LPU, Phagwara, LKCE, Jalandhar and GNA University, Phagwara. In 2013, he visited the University of Tartu, Estonia (EUROPE) as an International Doctoral Fellow.

    2).  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4440-9348

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2021-09-22

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Vol. 13 No. 1 (2021): January-April

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