| 英文摘要 |
Background: The coronavirus outbreak in 2020 has become one of the most important topics in international news. On March 12, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced COVID-19 as a pandemic, with more than two million confirmed cases worldwide. Taiwan is one of the closest countries to China, which is the epicenter of the disease. As of May 7, 2020, 440 people had been diagnosed with COVID-19, and six people have died. The relatively lower confirmed cases and deaths can offer valuable information about Taiwan’s containment of the virus.
Given the challenge of the global pandemic, the role of the media in presenting the crisis has become an important topic. In the context of a health crisis, previous studies contend that news coverage plays a significant role in influencing risk perception. Through the process of framing, communicators can define the problems (Nisbet, 2009) in the way of positioning and highlighting specific attributes over others. On the other hand, communicators potentially guide the audience to think and make judgments in accordance with news frames (Entman, 1993). Under these circumstances, news media coverage impacts public understanding and perceptions of the risks of COVID- 19, especially among people who watch and are exposed to it on a daily basis.
Social media users are important gatekeepers who amplify specific narratives by sharing news articles and engaging in online discussions (Brown, Yoo, & Johnson, 2019). While journalists are involved in the process of selecting and writing messages for distribution, nowadays, social media users contribute to selecting and redistributing specific content and creating new content (Odlum & Yoon, 2015). Studies also show that social media has become a principal sphere for exchanging information during the disease’s outbreak (Wong et al., 2021).
Purpose: This research explores how PTT Bulletin Board System (PTT) users in Taiwan conceive COVID-19, and how they perceive risk. In other words, we examine the online discourse related to COVID-19 and how people talk about it online. We further explore the ideology embedded in the discussions. Specifically, we adopt the conceptual metaphor theory to illustrate the hidden meaning in online discourses related to COVID-19. Building upon the concept of rhetorical ecologies, we also explore why and how specific topics draw public attention and become public agendas.
We extend the literature related to framing online public opinion in multiple ways. First, this study employs computational unsupervised text analysis, termed Analysis of Topic Model Networks (ANTMN) (Walter & Ophir, 2019), to study the online discourse surrounding COVID-19 and to explore the relationships among the topics. Prior works mainly focus on media frames regarding the epidemic, and most rely on deductive, theory-driven categories, where frames are pre-defined before analysis and then applied to texts. While informative, such a deductive approach is prone to researchers’biases and may miss emerging frames that not found in the past (Walter & Ophir, 2019; van Gorp, 2010). Furthermore, these frames are mostly general and fail to present the nuances of discussions during the global health crisis. By employing the new approach of framing study, ANTMN, we discover frames inductively and reduce such biases (Walter & Ophir, 2019). Building upon the frames of the discussions, we further adopt the conceptual metaphor theory and the concept of rhetorical ecologies to examine the ideology behind the frames in order to explain how the rhetorical technique contributes to the topic salience. Specifically, we ask the following.
RQ1: What are the frames of online discourse related to COVID-19?
RQ2: What topics are PTT Bulletin Board System (PTT) users most interested in?
RQ3: What are the relationships among the topics of online discourse?
Method: To answer the research questions about the theme of discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine posts along with comments using the keywords“COVID-19”(or“新冠肺炎”in Chinese) and“Wu Han virus”(“武漢肺炎”) on PTT, which is a Reddit-like forum in Taiwan. The sampling time spans from December 2019 to August 2020. The total sample size is more than 208 million posts and comments. We employ the computational Analysis of Topic Model Networks (ANTMN) approach (Walter & Ophir, 2019) over half a year during the 2020 pandemic. ANTMN is a 3-step approach, consisting of modeling a topic model, calculating a network of topics based on their cooccurrence in documents, and clustering topics into themes using community detection algorithms.
Findings: Our analysis of more than 2 million texts find 50 topics of discussion clustered into three thematic clusters: Taiwanese pandemic-prevention politics, Taiwan-China relations, and international pandemic. The Taiwanese pandemic-prevention politics frame includes conversations surrounding prevention behavior related to wearing masks and staying at home for the public good. However, the most prominent topic covers political discussions about government measures, such as the debate between political figures and political parties. Based on the threat of China to Taiwan, The Taiwan-China relations frame describes the origin of COVID-19 and China’s responsibility for the pandemic. Under the international pandemic frame, online discourse revolves around the global pandemic under the influence of China’s political power over other countries. These three frames focus on China’s responsibility for the pandemic in a geopolitical sense: Taiwan domestic politics, Taiwan-China relations, and international politics. Overall, essential discussion about COVID-19 is scarce. The pandemic is merely an excuse for Taiwan to blame China for reconfiguring the Taiwanese identity.
Implications: The research demonstrates the multi-faceted nature of discussion at the intersection of health, science, and geopolitics. The discourse around the pandemic involves nationalism and political affiliation, showing a discussion that attempts to embed identity or political ideology and combine emotional needs (e.g., patriotism) with political messaging (discussing the political force of China over the WHO) and practical information (promoting Taiwan’s ability to contribute to the global effort by emphasizing its own innovation and public health infrastructure). This study helps further develop the metaphor theory and demonstrates its ability to establish new mechanisms of dialogue and influences during a time of global crisis. |
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