Expendable to essential? Changing perceptions of gig workers on Twitter in the onset of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

While ride-hailing ridership declined in 2020 due to COVID-19 induced restrictions like stay-at-home orders, food/grocery delivery services became quasi-essential. This study investigates if and how public perceptions of gig work related to platform-based ride-hailing and food/grocery delivery services changed during the early stages of the pandemic. We collected a sample of 23,845 Twitter posts (‘tweets’) related to these platform-based services within two-week periods before and after the US COVID-19 emergency declaration. Sentiment analysis on tweets was conducted to investigate changes in public perception of gig work. Tweet content was analyzed by descriptively coding about 10% of the sample of tweets manually along ten different dimensions (e.g., personal experience, informative, and about driver); then we used thematic analysis to gain an understanding about the public’s views towards gig work/workers. We tested supervised machine learning methods to explore their potential to classify the rest of the sample along the ten descriptive dimensions. The number of tweets increased by approximately 150% after the emergency declaration and became more positive in sentiment. Qualitative results indicate that tweets about negative personal experiences with drivers/companies decreased during COVID-19, while tweets exhibiting a sense of community (e.g., sharing information) and concern towards gig workers increased. Findings can inform policy and workforce changes regarding platform-based service companies.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• ride-hailing driver
• delivery driver
• Twitter
• public opinion
• gig work

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation [grant number 2041215: Preparing the Future Workforce for the Era of Automated Vehicles]. Any opinions or findings expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Shubham Agrawal

Shubham Agrawal (Ph.D., Purdue University) is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice. He received his Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from Purdue University. He is currently investigating the impacts of automated vehicles on the driving workforce and developing strategies to prepare the future workforce for the transition. His other research interests include traveler behavior and cognition, emerging transportation technologies, alternative fuel vehicles, and smart mobility.

Amy M. Schuster

Amy M. Schuster (Ph.D., University of Kentucky) is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Clemson University. She earned her Ph.D. in Gerontology from the University of Kentucky, MSW from the University of Georgia, and BSW from Florida State University. Amy’s research interests have developed from her years of work experience as a social worker in a long-term care setting. She is particularly interested in information and communication technology use by older adults.

Noah Britt

Noah Britt is a junior at Clemson University majoring in computer science (BS), and most of his work revolves around analyzing social media data. He previously worked as an intern with the Social Media Listening Center at Clemson University.

Jessica Liberman

Jessica Liberman (B.A., Southern Illinois University of Carbondale) is a M.S. candidate in the Social Science program of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Clemson University. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Southern Illinois University of Carbondale in 2018. She currently works as a research assistant on the NSF project WEAVE: Preparing the Workforce for the Era of Automated Vehicles, applying methods of sociological inquiry to the project’s goals of workforce development.

Shelia R. Cotten

Shelia R. Cotten (Ph.D., North Carolina State University) is the Associate Vice President for Research Development and Provost’s Distinguished Professor at Clemson University. Her research examines emerging technologies and their impacts on quality of life, health, workforce, and educational outcomes. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute on Aging, American Center for Mobility, and other organizations. She is a former Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology (CITAMS) section; she won the Public Sociology and the William F. Ogburn Senior Career Awards from the CITAMS section. Prior to joining Clemson University in August 2020, she was an MSU Foundation Professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University.