Who Plays an Important Role for Information Networks of COVID-19 in Latin America?

Abstract

This study highlights key players for COVID-19 in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador by employing social network analysis for Twitter. This study finds that key players in Latin America play various roles in COVID-19 social networks, differing from country to country. For example, Brazil has no Latin key players, whereas Colombia and Ecuador have 8 Latin key players in the top 10 key players. Secondly, the role of governmental key players also varies across different countries. For instance, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador have the governmental key player as the top key player, whereas Brazil and Colombia have the news media key player as the first. Thirdly, each country shows different social networks according to groups. For instance, Colombia exhibits the most open social networks among groups, whereas Brazil shows the most closed social networks among the 6 Latin countries. Fourthly, several top tweeters are common across the 6 Latin American countries. For example, Peru and Colombia have caraotadigital (Venezuelan news media), and Chile and Argentina have extravzla (Venezuelan news media) as the top tweeter.