Sentiment and Emotions Analysis of Tweets During the Second Round of 2021 Ecuadorian Presidential Election

Abstract

Nowadays, the social network Twitter has acquired relevant importance as a massive communication and public engagement tool for personal, business, and political purposes. Furthermore, the fast spread of news through Twitter allows politicians to broadcast their messages instantly and directly to a larger audience. Thus, this paper aims to explore, investigate, and compare the texts posted by both candidates Arauz and Lasso on Twitter during the second round of the 2021 Ecuadorian presidential elections by applying sentiment analysis in order to determine and analyze their behavior and interaction with other Twitter users. The results obtained present the main differences between both candidates as well as their similarities when posting tweets. Furthermore, by applying sentiment analysis, the tweets are classified according to sentiment categories (positive or negative) and, in a deeper analysis, emotion categories (trust, joy, anticipation, fear, sadness, anger, surprise, or disgust). All the results are presented in graphs of frequency and distribution, which makes it easier to interpret the results achieved.