Department of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
PLoS One. 2020 Sep 30;15(9):e0240010. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240010. eCollection 2020.
Doctors and nurses in these weeks and months are busy in the trenches, fighting against a new invisible enemy: Covid-19. Cities are locked down and civilians are besieged in their own homes, to prevent the spreading of the virus. War-related terminology is commonly used to frame the discourse around epidemics and diseases. The discourse around the current epidemic makes use of war-related metaphors too, not only in public discourse and in the media, but also in the tweets written by non-experts of mass communication. We hereby present an analysis of the discourse around #Covid-19, based on a large corpus tweets posted on Twitter during March and April 2020. Using topic modelling we first analyze the topics around which the discourse can be classified. Then, we show that the WAR framing is used to talk about specific topics, such as the virus treatment, but not others, such as the effects of social distancing on the population. We then measure and compare the popularity of the WAR frame to three alternative figurative frames (MONSTER, STORM and TSUNAMI) and a literal frame used as control (FAMILY). The results show that while the FAMILY frame covers a wider portion of the corpus, among the figurative frames WAR, a highly conventional one, is the frame used most frequently. Yet, this frame does not seem to be apt to elaborate the discourse around some aspects involved in the current situation. Therefore, we conclude, in line with previous suggestions, a plethora of framing options-or a metaphor menu-may facilitate the communication of various aspects involved in the Covid-19-related discourse on the social media, and thus support civilians in the expression of their feelings, opinions and beliefs during the current pandemic.
在过去的几个月里，医生和护士一直奋战在抗疫一线，与一种新型隐形敌人——新冠病毒作斗争。城市被封锁，市民被困在家中，以防病毒传播。在描述传染病和疾病时，人们通常会使用与战争相关的术语。目前的疫情大流行也使用了与战争相关的隐喻，不仅在公共话语和媒体中，而且在非大众传播专家发布的推文中也使用了这些隐喻。在此，我们基于 2020 年 3 月至 4 月期间在 Twitter 上发布的大量推文，对#Covid-19 相关话语进行了分析。我们首先使用主题建模对可以对论述进行分类的主题进行了分析。然后，我们发现，“战争”框架被用于讨论特定的话题，如病毒治疗，但不用于讨论社会隔离对民众的影响等其他话题。接着，我们测量并比较了“战争”框架与三个替代比喻框架（怪物、风暴和海啸）以及作为控制的字面框架（家庭）的流行度。结果表明，虽然“家庭”框架涵盖了语料库的更大部分，但在比喻框架中，“战争”——一个高度传统的框架——是使用最频繁的框架。然而，这个框架似乎并不适合详细阐述当前形势下所涉及的某些方面的论述。因此，我们得出结论，与之前的建议一致，大量的框架选择——或者说一个隐喻菜单——可能会促进社交媒体上与新冠病毒相关的论述的各个方面的交流，从而在当前的大流行期间支持民众表达自己的感受、意见和信仰。
