{"title":"Frames and sentiments of the Twitter communication by German Chancellor Scholz during the Russian invasion of Ukraine","authors":"Stefan Nisch","doi":"10.2478/pce-2023-0028","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In a complex information environment, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents a major challenge to the communication of political leaders throughout the world. The objective of this article is to analyse the frames and sentiments used by German chancellor Olaf Scholz, employing a novel data set of his Twitter communication (N = 612) during the Russian invasion of Ukraine between 24 February 2022 and 24 February 2023. A combination of computational text analysis approaches with natural language processing (NLP) techniques was used, including the Valence Aware Dictionary and the sentiment Reasoner (VADER) model for sentiment analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for topic modelling. This research investigates the prevalent frames and emotions in the chancellor’s communication, providing valuable insights into the German government’s stance and strategic communication during this critical geopolitical event. The results of the study revealed that the chancellor used the frames ‘effects of the Ukraine invasion’, ‘climate & environment’, ‘solidarity’ and ‘Russian aggression’ and communicated with positive sentiments. By examining the chancellor’s Twitter communication, this study contributes to the understanding of political communication in the digital era, particularly in the context of international crises, and offers implications for policymakers, scholars and the broader public.","PeriodicalId":37403,"journal":{"name":"Politics in Central Europe","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Politics in Central Europe","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2478/pce-2023-0028","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract In a complex information environment, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents a major challenge to the communication of political leaders throughout the world. The objective of this article is to analyse the frames and sentiments used by German chancellor Olaf Scholz, employing a novel data set of his Twitter communication (N = 612) during the Russian invasion of Ukraine between 24 February 2022 and 24 February 2023. A combination of computational text analysis approaches with natural language processing (NLP) techniques was used, including the Valence Aware Dictionary and the sentiment Reasoner (VADER) model for sentiment analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for topic modelling. This research investigates the prevalent frames and emotions in the chancellor’s communication, providing valuable insights into the German government’s stance and strategic communication during this critical geopolitical event. The results of the study revealed that the chancellor used the frames ‘effects of the Ukraine invasion’, ‘climate & environment’, ‘solidarity’ and ‘Russian aggression’ and communicated with positive sentiments. By examining the chancellor’s Twitter communication, this study contributes to the understanding of political communication in the digital era, particularly in the context of international crises, and offers implications for policymakers, scholars and the broader public.
期刊介绍:
POLITICS IN CENTRAL EUROPE – The Journal of the Central European Political Science Association is an independent and internationally peer-reviewed scientific journal in political science and international relations. The Journal was established in 2005 as the scientific review that publishes scientific essays, book reviews and information about conferences and other events connected with Central European issues. POLITICS IN CENTRAL EUROPE publishes politics, policy analysis, international relations and other sub-disciplines of political original, peer-reviewed manuscripts that provide scientific essays focusing on issues in comparative science, as well as original theoretical or conceptual analyses. All essays must contribute to a broad understanding of the region of Central Europe. Our goal is to give scholars from Central Europe and beyond the opportunity to present the results of their research.