Sentiment Analysis of the Syrian Conflict on Twitter

Abstract

Social media have become an important means of imposing ideas and interests in social‏ conflicts. The Syrian conflict is analysed using sentiment analysis of tweets in order to establish how the‏ sentiment shapes the modern political landscape and influences recipient knowledge. The importance of‏ social networks and their potential in overthrowing regimes as well as in radicalization are highlighted.‏ The authors suggest several stages that can be used for analysing tweets and how they impact the reader‏ with selected narration. Sentiment analysis is used on a trained data set as a way to gain insight into‏ tweets of different factions in the Syria conflict. Selected tweets on missile strikes were published on 14‏ April 2018 and the day after. The Twitter profiles of three different sides – pro-Assad, pro-West and anti-‏ Assad – were also analysed. The results show that there is a real battle on social media with the purpose‏ of influencing human emotions.