The Content Analysis of Social Media Shares in Turkish Related to COVID-19

Abstract

A remarkable increase has currently been happening in social media platform content related to COVID-19. Users have created large volumes of content on various topics over a short time, interacting with people in real-time. This also has transformed social media into an indispensable information source for any crisis. This study aims to explore the information content on COVID-19 disseminated through social media and to discover prominent topics in shares on COVID-19. In this regard, we have retrieved 17,542 tweets shared in Turkish. A content analysis of social media shares has been carried out, with latent semantic indexing and network analyses being performed to detect the relationships and interactions among shares. As a result, the most shared topics have been concluded to be on yasak [lockdown], tedbir [precaution], karantina [quarantine], and vaka [case], with communication being frequently passed using this semantic string and information exchanges being faster within the network. In addition, shares related to hygiene, masks, and distancing were determined to have occurred less than shares related to precautions, rules, cases, and lockdowns. The number of likes and retweets for content with social propaganda such as #evdekal [stayathome], #evdehayatvar [lifeathome], and #birliktebaşaracağız [togetherwesucceed] were low and not found in a semantic string. This suggests social propaganda through social media to have had a limited impact on epidemic management. In conclusion, identifying the prominent issues in social media posts and the characteristics of social media networks will help decision-makers determine appropriate policies for controlling and preventing the pandemic’s spread.