Original title: Framing COVID-19: How we conceptualize and discuss the pandemic on Twitter
Researchers examined tweets about COVID-19 posted during March and April 2020. They used topic modellingA method for sorting many texts into groups based on the subjects they discuss., a way to group texts by the subjects they discuss, and compared war language with three other metaphorA way of describing one thing through another, such as calling a disease an enemy. types and a literal family frame. War language was the most common of the metaphors, especially for some topics such as treatment, but it was not used for every topic. The researchers argue that having several ways to describe the pandemic may help people express different experiences.
Imagine trying to describe a difficult week to a friend using only sports terms. Some moments might fit, but a lonely evening or a tiring chore could be hard to explain that way. In this paper, war language is one limited set of words, and the many parts of pandemic life are the moments people are trying to describe. Having more ways to talk can help people express more of what they experienced.
The words people use can shape how they talk about a crisis. The analysis suggests that relying mainly on war language may leave some experiences, such as the effects of social distancing, harder to express; offering more ways to describe the pandemic may help people share different feelings and views.
The abstract describes tweets posted during March and April 2020, so it does not establish whether these patterns hold at other times or on other platforms. It also does not show that particular frames caused changes in how people felt or communicated.
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Framing COVID-19: How we conceptualize and discuss the pandemic on Twitter — Philipp Wicke, Marianna Bolognesi — PLoS ONE — doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0240010
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.