Volume14
Abstract: In the midst of COVID-19, contract tracing systems are an important tool for governments around the world to control and track the spread of the disease. However, contract tracing requires pubic acceptance and cooperation to be effective. This study provides an overview of contact tracing, including a review of literature and potential privacy concerns that have been identified. In order to measure public sentiment towards contact tracing, we gathered over 50,000 Twitter posts (tweets) across a three month time frame in April, May, and June of 2020. Using popular sentiment analysis models (Bing, AFinn, and NRC), we found that sentiment towards the term “contact tracing” became more negative across the time frame and that words associated with the emotion categories of “Anticipation”, “Fear”, and “Trust” are most prevalent. We also found that retweeted posts have an important impact on the results and that anecdotal examination of specific tweets shows polarizing views on the subject. Download this article: JISAR - V14 N1 Page 60.pdf Recommended Citation: Crable, E., Sena, M., (2021). Exploring Sentiment Towards Contact Tracing. Journal of Information Systems Applied Research14(1) pp 60-68. http://JISAR.org/2021-1/ ISSN : 1946 - 1836. A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of CONISAR 2020 | ||||||