Impact du 3e confinement lié à la Covid19 sur les émotions des Français : exploration textuelle de 481 601 flux Twitter

Abstract

Objective

This work proposes the investigation of the immediate emotional repercussions of the announcements of the third containment in France. In order to respond to this objective, we are interested in the emotional reactions as they were communicated via the social network Twitter between March 11, 2021 and April 08, 2021.

Method

Among the tweets, 481,601 were retrieved via the rtweet library of R software. An automated emotional lexicon analysis was conducted. The data were processed according to two approaches: (i) one cross-sectionally and (ii) the other one considering longitudinally the dynamic aspect of emotions by studying the content of tweets, day after day.

Results

The impact of the containment announcements is not trivial. If positive emotions can be observed, the impact remains mostly negative and global. Over the whole period considered, the dominant feeling was one of discomfort. It is illustrated by an experience of loneliness, feelings of tension, suffering and/or frustration. Depression and suffering are also predominant in all the tweets. The temporal analyses show that the nature and diversity of emotions vary according to the date on which the tweets were published. The reconfinement announcements are thus mainly associated with hatred but appear to be only transient.

Discussion

The results are discussed with respect to the adaptive functions of emotions.

Conclusion

The analysis of the messages posted on social networks brings us information for a real-time understanding of the emotional reactions related to reconfinement announcements. In addition to examining the type of emotions mobilized, a dynamic reading of them will help to bring out the personal meaning that the confinement may have had.