Analyzing the Public Response on Twitter of Socialized Medicine Following the COVID-19 Pandemic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47611/jsrhs.v12i3.4995Keywords:
socialized medicine, healthcare system, covid-19, coronavirusAbstract
This research paper aims to analyze data gathered from the popular social media site, Twitter, to gain insight regarding human perceptions on the ongoing discussion of socialized medicine in the United States. The study used both a sentiment analysis and thematic analysis to analyze a sample of tweets referencing socialized medicine and COVID-19 posted between December 2018 and January 2021. However, as the sentiment analysis revealed flawed data due to its nature of only analyzing an individual’s tone to a particular subject matter, this research solely relied on the data provided by the thematic analysis. The thematic analysis conducted revealed four recurring themes: irony, disagreement with political beliefs, comparisons to countries with socialized medicine, and beliefs influenced by first-hand experience. The analysis of these four recurrent themes shed light on the complexity of the debate surrounding the topic of socialized medicine in the United States, and the findings of this study suggest the impact COVID-19 had in shifting public opinion to favor the implementation of socialized medicine. However, further research is needed to further understand the complexities of the various healthcare systems and the diverse perspectives held by Americans on this important issue.
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