THE DEVELOPMENT OF RACIST SENTIMENT AGAINST ASIANS ON TWITTER DURING COVID-19

Abstract

Social media plays a significant role in everyday life. In addition to enhancing the social environment, digital platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it contributed to political matters. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the digital platforms were exposed as a hotbed for racism and other discriminatory practices.. Such perceptions and attitudes were especially prominent toward Asian communities due to beliefs and assumptions that associated the virus’s location with conspiracy theories and other disparaging perceptions. This research study will focus on studying racist ideologies and opinions perpetrated through tweets by conducting a corpus analysis. Through this analysis, the study attempts to understand the underlying reasons for such attitudes and beliefs. In addition, this study also strives to comprehend how social media perpetuates and reinforces discrimination and bias against Asians. Keywords: Twitter, tweets, racism, discrimination.

Date of Award	2021
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Humanities and Social Science