Applied Mathematics Commons^™

Sentiment Analysis Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Emily Musgrove

Mathematics Summer Fellows

This study examines the change in connotative language use before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. By analyzing news articles from several major US newspapers, we found that there is a statistically significant correlation between the sentiment of the text and the publication period. Specifically, we document a large, systematic, and statistically significant decline in the overall sentiment of articles published in major news outlets. While our results do not directly gauge the sentiment of the population, our findings have important implications regarding the social responsibility of journalists and media outlets especially in times of crisis.