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Top1. Introduction
In December 2019, cluster infection of unidentified COVID-19 occurred. A novel coronavirus, which can spread across species and through human-to-human contact, was isolated and sequenced, which was named “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (i.e. SARS-CoV-2). On February 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially named the severe infectious pneumonia caused by this virus Coronavirus Disease-19 (i.e. COVID-19). Due to its rapid spread and inevitable high infectivity, it has been classified as a major infectious disease by WHO. It has spread to 185 countries and regions (Di Gennaro et al., 2020). As of November 10, 2020, there were a total of 50,913,451 confirmed cases worldwide, resulting in 1,263,089 deaths according to the COVID-19 dashboard of Johns Hopkins University.
In the modern society that features information explosion, people are becoming increasingly dependent on the Internet. Against this background, the young are more willing to voice their opinions on the Internet, commenting on news, responding to the posts on social media, and participating in discussion on a forum. Thus, their remarks about an event can be regarded as Internet public opinions. Internet users’ increasing adherence to the Internet enables the authorities to promote their policies via social media and traditional news media to regard social media like Facebook and Youtube as a platform to disseminate information.
The Taiwanese authorities took the lead in COVID-19 prevention because of an article posted on PTT Gossiping. On December 31st, 2019, the Internet user “nomorepipe” published the article “Suspected SARS Coronavirus Cluster Infection Broke out in Wuhan?” The netizen posted a test report concerning the coronavirus by Li Wenliang, who is claimed Coronavirus Whistleblower doctor. The article led to heated discussion, which drew the attention of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Therefore, Taiwan initiated its epidemic prevention in January 1, 2020, which was earlier than other countries and regions across the world.
In brief, the present study aimed to use DiVoMiner to retrieve the data about Internet public opinions on COVID-19 between December 31, 2019, the time when public opinions on COVID-19 first appeared, and June 7, 2020, the time when Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) “unsealed” Taiwan. Afterward, QCA and ACA were employed to set the keywords that were used to retrieve and analyze data, expecting to clarify the following questions:
- 1.
How many reports and discussions about COVID-19 are there on the Internet, including news media, social media and forums?
- 2.
What are the words that Internet users choose to comment on COVID-19 events?
- 3.
How do the emotions that the Internet public opinions on COVID-19 convey change?
- 4.
Is there a correlation between the numbers of public opinions about COVID-19 on different media?
Top2. Internet Public Opinions
Compared with traditional media, the Internet has fewer limitations caused by carriers. Moreover, the Internet gradually changes the way of information transmission: the information was previously disseminated from “one to one” and “one to many”, but now it is transmitted from “many to many”. On the other hand, the information flow on the Internet spreads fast but gets insufficient management. As for public opinions, they are complicated and may be antagonistic to each other. Worse still, readers’ subjective judgment during information dissemination makes the media unable to play the role of “gatekeeper” like before. As a consequence, the authenticity of information on the Internet cannot be guaranteed. In this context, a great deal of ever-flowing information inevitably includes false and unconfirmed one. Therefore, opinion leaders may take Internet users to a wrong direction, and some even deliberately take public opinions to a direction that helps them achieve their goals (Huang Wei, Li Rui, & Meng Jialin, 2015).