The COVID-19 crisis has sparked a resurgence of scholarly interest in the issue of ageism. Whether the outbreak thwarts or facilitates efforts to combat ageism hinges upon public sentiments toward the older demographic. This study aims to explore discourse surrounding older adults by analyzing 183,179 related tweets posted during the COVID-19 pandemic from February to December 2020. Overall, sentiments toward older adults became significantly less negative over time, being the least negative in April, August, and October, though the score remained below the neutral value throughout the 11 months. Our topic modelling analysis generated four themes: “The Need to Protect Older Adults” (41%), “Vulnerability and Mortality” (36%), “Failure of Political Leadership” (12%), and “Resilience” (11%). These findings indicate nascent support for older adults, though attempts to show solidarity may well worsen benevolent ageism.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 大流行期间 Twitter 上的年龄歧视

COVID-19 危机再次激发了学术界对年龄歧视问题的兴趣。疫情是否会阻碍或促进打击年龄歧视的努力取决于公众对老年人口的看法。本研究旨在通过分析 2020 年 2 月至 2020 年 12 月 COVID-19 大流行期间发布的 183,179 条相关推文来探索围绕老年人的话语。总体而言，随着时间的推移，对老年人的负面情绪明显减少，在 4 月、8 月和 8 月的负面情绪最低。 10 月，尽管在整个 11 个月中得分都低于中性值。我们的主题建模分析产生了四个主题：“保护老年人的需要”（41%）、“脆弱性和死亡率”（36%）、“政治领导的失败”（12%）和“韧性”（11%） . 这些发现表明新生支持老年人，