The Emotional Anatomy of the Wuhan Lockdown: Sentiment Analysis Using Weibo Data

Area of Science:

• Social Sciences
• Psychology
• Data Science

Background:

• The COVID-19 pandemic led to the Wuhan lockdown on January 23, 2020.
• Previous studies on emotional responses to the lockdown yielded inconclusive results.
• Existing research utilized limited emotion types for analysis.

Purpose of the Study:

• To map Chinese individuals' emotional responses to the Wuhan lockdown.
• To compare emotional responses between Wuhan residents and those elsewhere in China.
• To analyze social media data using the circumplex model of affect.

Main Methods:

• Collected Weibo posts from January 9 to February 6, 2020 (2 weeks pre- and post-lockdown).
• Coded posts for valence and arousal scores using a dataset of 359,190 posts.
• Employed multilevel modeling on 57,685 posts to compare Wuhan and non-Hubei residents.

Main Results:

• Most posts (69.25%) during the lockdown period showed pleasant moods with low arousal.
• Valence and arousal increased before and after the lockdown announcement.
• Non-Hubei residents showed a temporary boost in valence and arousal on lockdown day; Wuhan residents showed smaller increases.

Conclusions:

• Early pandemic Weibo posts predominantly expressed positive emotions with low arousal.
• Increased valence and arousal post-lockdown suggest collective cohesion and mutual support.
• Wuhan residents' emotions were less affected by the lockdown announcement compared to non-Hubei residents, indicating resilience.