How do people tweet about gay and bisexual people surrounding the 2022 monkeypox outbreak? An NLP-based text analysis of tweets in the U.S.

ABSTRACT

Despite the United States government agencies’ efforts, inconsistent messaging about the causes of the 2022 monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. facilitates the potential stigmatization of gay and bisexual communities. Grounded in the model of stigma communication, this research describes how Twitter users communicate about the monkeypox outbreak and sexual minorities by analyzing US-based tweets containing the following search strings: “gay,” “bisexual,” or “monkeypox.” Using natural language processing (i.e. n-gram and sentiment analyses), this study uncovered that among tweets mentioning “gay” or “bisexual” with “monkeypox” together, stigmatizing phrases such as “gay disease” and negatively valenced words were common. Results were discussed in terms of the model of stigma communication and the potential influences of such communication on Twitter to a broader society.

KEYWORDS:

• Stigma communication
• sexual minorities
• monkeypox
• Twitter
• text analysis

Data availability statement

Data are available from the author.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Steve Rains for his feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

There are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report.

Notes on contributors

Hyeonchang Gim

Hyeonchang Gim (M.A., the University of Arizona, 2021) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at the University of Arizona. His research interests include mediated communication and intergroup relations.