In this study, a social media analysis is conducted to examine the public discourse about the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic on Twitter. In particular, this study aims to examine (a) how the number of tweets varies as a function of the timeline of the pandemic and associated measures and (b) how the content of these tweets, including displayed emotions, changes. Therefore, 373,908 tweets and retweets from Belgium were collected from February 25, 2020 to the March 30. Time series analysis, network bigrams, topic models, and emotional lexica were deployed for analysis. The results showed that significant events related to the virus correlated with an immediate increase in the number of tweets addressing them. Furthermore, the Belgian Twitter discourse was characterized by positively connoted words, which also refer to European solidarity. These findings do not only stress the relevance of Twitter as a medium for public discourse during lockdowns, but also seem to indicate that the Belgian public supports policy measures that respect solidarity in Europe.

中文翻译：

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#Coronavirus：监测比利时Twitter对严重急性呼吸系统综合症的讨论冠状病毒2大流行

在这项研究中，进行了社交媒体分析，以检查有关Twitter上关于严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）大流行的公众言论。具体而言，本研究旨在研究（a）推文数量如何随大流行时间和相关措施而变化；以及（b）这些推文的内容（包括所显示的情绪）如何变化。因此，从2020年2月25日到3月30日，收集了来自比利时的373,908条推文和转发。对时间序列分析，网络二元模型，主题模型和情感词典进行了分析。结果表明，与病毒有关的重大事件与处理这些病毒的推文数量立即增加有关。此外，比利时推特（Twitter）话语的特征是带有积极含义的词语，也指欧洲的团结。这些发现不仅强调了Twitter作为封锁期间公众言论媒介的重要性，而且似乎表明比利时公众支持尊重欧洲团结的政策措施。