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Social Versus Physical Distancing: Analysis of Public Health Messages at the Start of COVID-19 Outbreak in Malaysia Using Natural Language Processing

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Book cover Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computational Science and Technology

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering ((LNEE,volume 835))

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Abstract

The study presents an attempt to analyse how social media netizens in Malaysia responded to the calls for “Social Distancing” and “Physical Distancing” as the newly recommended social norm was introduced to the world as a response to the COVID-19 global pandemic. The pandemic drove a sharp increase in social media platforms’ use as a public health communication platform since the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak in Malaysia in April 2020. We analysed thousands of tweets posted by Malaysians daily between January 2020 and August 2021 to determine public perceptions and interactions patterns. The analysis focused on positive and negative reactions and the interchanges of uses of the recommended terminologies “social distancing” and “physical distancing”. Using linguistic analysis and natural language processing, findings dominantly indicate influences from the multilingual and multicultural values held by Malaysian netizens, as they embrace the concept of distancing as a measure of global public health safety.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Malaysia

    Sarah Samson Juan & Suhaila Saee

  2. Faculty of Cognitive Sciences and Human Resource Development, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan, Malaysia

    Fitri Mohamad

Authors
  1. Sarah Samson Juan
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  2. Suhaila Saee
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  3. Fitri Mohamad
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sarah Samson Juan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computing and Informatics, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

    Rayner Alfred

  2. School of Information, Science, Security, Network, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Ishikawa, Japan

    Yuto Lim

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Juan, S.S., Saee, S., Mohamad, F. (2022). Social Versus Physical Distancing: Analysis of Public Health Messages at the Start of COVID-19 Outbreak in Malaysia Using Natural Language Processing. In: Alfred, R., Lim, Y. (eds) Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computational Science and Technology. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 835. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8515-6_44

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