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Title: Zika discourse in the Americas: A multilingual topic analysis of Twitter

Journal Article · · PLoS ONE
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  4. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Article Authors Metrics Comments Media Coverage Abstract Introduction Materials and methods Results Discussion Acknowledgments References Reader Comments (0) Media Coverage (0) Figures Abstract This work examines Twitter discussion surrounding the 2015 outbreak of Zika, a virus that is most often mild but has been associated with serious birth defects and neurological syndromes. We introduce and analyze a collection of 3.9 million tweets mentioning Zika geolocated to North and South America, where the virus is most prevalent. Using a multilingual topic model, we automatically identify and extract the key topics of discussion across the dataset in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. We examine the variation in Twitter activity across time and location, finding that rises in activity tend to follow to major events, and geographic rates of Zika-related discussion are moderately correlated with Zika incidence (ρ = .398).

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
1526952
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-18-25885
Journal Information:
PLoS ONE, Vol. 14, Issue 5; ISSN 1932-6203
Publisher:
Public Library of ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 23 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (1)

Public Sphere in Crisis Mode: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Influenced Public Discourse and User Behaviour in the Swiss Twitter-sphere journal April 2021

Figures / Tables (8)

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Table 4(p. 17)table Table 4
Fig. 4(p. 18)figure Fig. 4

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