[New Wave] Analysis and Utilization of Online Discourse in the Era of Risk Society

Beck defined modern society as a 'risk society.' A risk society refers to a society where the principles and structures of the modern industrial society, which achieved great prosperity, themselves become the sources of risk. The remarkable modernization and advancements in technology and transportation have promoted globalization worldwide. However, on the other hand, new types of risks that did not previously exist have begun to emerge. Among the many risks in modern society, one of the issues with very high uncertainty and that threatens the entire globe is public health issues such as novel viruses.

As seen in the case of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that emerged in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, the risk posed by novel viruses to the world is becoming increasingly serious. Just as weather forecasts are provided daily through the news, information such as confirmed cases, deaths, and contaminated areas identified through epidemiological investigations due to novel virus infections is now delivered in real time through the media. This is because the risk of novel viruses in modern society is linked to public safety and life, and furthermore, it is evidence that it has a wide-ranging impact on international relations, medical disputes, domestic markets, and the global economy.

'Risk perception' is a subjective judgment felt personally and is sometimes reconstructed through communication with members of society. In situations where risks occur, people do not rely solely on unilateral information provided by the government or the media but acquire and generate information themselves, forming discourse. Moreover, the information behavior of information transmitters, such as the dissemination and sharing of information, inevitably increases through various forms and channels.

Above all, the increase in the use of smart devices with ubiquitous characteristics and the activation of social network services (SNS) make it easy to generate personal data such as texts, photos, videos, and location information. In the event of a risk, it is necessary to maximize the efficiency of risk communication between the government and the public by utilizing data generated by citizens online to understand the level of public risk perception and analyze the trends of discourse. Especially given the online characteristics where risk information without scientifically confirmed evidence can create social fear, and where exaggerated, sensational, and biased information is consumed rather than objective information based on facts, big data-based analysis and utilization capable of extracting so-called fake news are becoming increasingly important.

One of the topics that caught attention in the real-time Twitter trending list over the past few days was a support relay (#ThankYou, 질병관리본부) for the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), the COVID-19 control tower. The voluntary tweet relay by Twitter users reached tens of thousands over the weekend. Although some tweets and retweets contained criticism of the KDCA, most were messages of concern, gratitude, and support for the public officials belonging to the KDCA. Whether the content was intended to encourage or criticize, the actions of information creation, sharing, dissemination, and connection within the online space play a role in forming social discourse and also create an online community. This community goes beyond the concept of a space where individuals freely share information and knowledge; as a social network, it exerts significant influence across politics, economy, culture, and society as a whole.

Through online network analysis, which can systematically and scientifically analyze the vast amount of data left by many participants within such online communities, it is necessary to continuously analyze how the communication content and interaction patterns among online users change at certain points and how the network structure of online discourse and communities evolves. Additionally, it is hoped that the analysis results will be built into a database and used for prevention and response to narrow the communication gap between the government and the public in the event of unknown novel infectious disease outbreaks in the future.

Jeong Wonjun, Associate Professor, Department of Media Communication, University of Suwon