Protesting With Feeling in Puerto Rico: Twitter and El Verano Del 19

Abstract

Communication research has extensively addressed the influence of social media on protest. We seek to add to this body of research by examining how sentiment contained in Twitter communication about protest can condition the public reach of this communication. Specifically, we are interested in whether Twitter communication couched in negative sentiments like anger, disgust, and fear will drive this reach more than communication couched in positive sentiment such as trust, joy, and surprise. We rely on sentiment analysis to examine roughly 30,000 tweets surrounding the summer of 2019 Protests in Puerto Rico. These protests centered on a scandal involving former Governor Ricardo Rossello that ultimately led to his resignation. The analysis required adapting an English language sentiment dictionary to Spanish. Our results suggest that protesters frequently tweeted with both positive and negative sentiment when calling for the governor’s resignation, but ultimately, those tweets couched in negative sentiment, when compared to those with positive sentiment, had the most reach. That said, those tweets including either positive or negative sentiment had more reach than those absent sentiment.