The application of the sentiment analysis technique in social media as a tool for social management practices at the governmental level

Abstract

Sentiment analysis is a knowledge discovery technique developed from data mining; its purpose is to reveal people’s opinions on specific topics. This is an appropriate technique to apply to unstructured data sources, such as social media, that cover information on a variety of topics (such as politics and public administration). In this context, the objective of this study was to identify whether sentiment analysis can reflect public opinion and, thus, contribute to practices of social management. Therefore, the sentiment analysis technique was applied to reveal citizens’ opinions, which were expressed on Twitter and concerned some of the main social programs in force during Brazil’s Rousseff government. The study consisted of a comparison between the results of the sentiment analysis and the concepts and applications involving four strategies of social media used by governments from the point of view of social management. The results revealed that the sentiment analysis technique could contribute to social management practices in the context of the network strategy.