Machine Learning Methods for Opinion Mining In text: The Past and the Future

Abstract

Sentiment analysis, which is also referred as opinion mining, attracts continuous and increasing interest not only from the academic but also from the business domain. Countless text messages are exchanged on a daily basis within social media, capturing the interest of researchers, journalists, companies, and governments. In these messages people usually declare their opinions or express their feelings, their beliefs and speculations, i.e., their sentiments. The massive use of on-line social networks and the large amount of data collected through them, has raised the attention to analyze the rich information they contain. In this chapter we present a comprehensive overview of the various methods used for sentiment analysis and how they have evolved in the age of big data.