Understanding Citizens’ Tweets During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia: A Thematic Analysis Study

Abstract

The coronavirus began in December 2019; in Wuhan, China, later the virus spread rapidly within a relatively short period of time, causing a global pandemic. Therefore, the Saudi government responded to the threat of COVID-19 from the start by imposing a lockdown to curb the number of affected patients and to prevent the fast-spreading virus, such as turning to distance learning, banning travel, imposing curfews, and postponing social activities.  As social activities and social communication were affected by the crisis, people in Saudi Arabia tend to increasingly use social media platforms, one of which is Twitter. Little is known about the Saudis’ reactions on Twitter during COVID-19 and after. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate how Saudi Twitter users express their feelings qualitatively during and after COVID-19 outbreaks. For the scope of this study, Arabic tweets related to COVID-19 expressed by Saudi citizens were collected from Twitter using the web scraping service Apify. The data covered the periods of COVID-19 from the 1^st of January 2020 to the 7^th of July 2022. The selection of these tweets was primarily based on trending hashtags and keywords populated from Saudi Arabia. A total of 11,900 Arabic tweets were obtained, and only 473 tweets were considered in this study. A qualitative thematic analysis of Saudis’ tweets resulted in the identification of five main themes: 1) negative attitudes (i.e., fear, frustration, and sadness, 309, 65%); 2) positive attitudes (56, 12%); 3) advise-giving (48, 10%); 4) humour (34, 7%); and 5) information-seeking (26, 5%). These findings suggest that Saudi governmental agencies should actively engage in two-way communication with the public, provide trustworthy information, and manage the crisis based on the public’s needs. Our present research has shown that Twitter is a valuable source of reality, reflecting unique experiences among its users. Thematic analysis has proven to be a useful approach in providing insightful information about the Saudis’ needs in times of crisis and after. In addition, governments and health authorities can have a better understanding of the public's needs and thus prepare their crisis management strategies in order to relieve the public’s psychological pressures.