The message of Pope Francis in time of pandemic: Engagement and sentiment on Twitter

Figures & data

Table 1. Criteria used for the selection of the units of analysis.

	Group 1	Group 2
Language	Spanish	English
Hashtag	#papa	#pope
Any of these words	Covid, pandemia, coronavirus, pandemic, covid19
Dates	From: 2020-03-01 To: 2021-01-01

Source: own elaboration.

Table 2. Categories related to engagement.

Category	Operational definition
Total users	Unique users who have used the criteria used for tweet retrieval.
Tweets by user	Average number of tweets published by each user
Potential impacts	Potential number of impressions of the hashtag or term used. Number of times it has been viewed.
Potential reach	How many users may have seen the hashtag or term analysed. The global audience.
Followers by user	Average followers per user.
Original tweets	Number of original tweets, not retweets.
Users of original tweets	Number of users who have posted original tweets, not retweets.
Original tweets by user	Average number of original tweets published per user.

Data: Tweet Binder. Source: own elaboration.

Table 3. Categories and variables for the analysis of tweets published from 27 to 28 March 2020.

Category	Variables
Profile type	Diocese/Archdiocese/Congregations Business (not mass media) Government/public Mass Media (Catholic Church) Mass Media (non-church) Official Vatican media Not identified NGOs/Associations Individuals
Tweet content	Day of Prayer Event information (previous days) Not related to day of prayer event Not identified
Link type	News website Error in the link Social media Diocese/Archdiocese/Congregations Personal/institutional blogs Not related to the event
Image type	Pope Francis—General map of St. Peter's Square Pope Francis—Other moments of prayer Pope Francis—Unrelated to the event. Pope Francis—Before the moment of prayer Not a picture of the Pope and unrelated to the event. Information about the event Meme related to the event
Video type	Images of the ceremony Pope—Unrelated to the event No relation to the event Information about the event
Tweet verification	Yes No Account suspended Protected tweet Nickname change

Source: own elaboration.

Table 4. User characteristics.

	General		Spanish		English
	Users (n = 5676)	% Totals	Users	% Totals	Users	% Totals
Followers
0–10	199	3.5	102	3.1	97	4.0
10–50	538	9.5	318	9.8	220	9.1
50–200	1136	20.0	755	23.2	381	15.8
200–500	1068	18.8	687	21.1	381	15.8
500–1000	784	13.8	455	14.0	329	13.6
1000–5000	1310	23.1	623	19.1	687	28.4
More than 5000	641	11.3	319	9.8	322	13.3
Years on Twitter
0–1	248	4.4	66	2.03	182	7.53
1–2	550	9.7	330	10.13	220	9.1
2–3	321	5.7	195	5.98	126	5.21
3–4	335	5.9	164	5.03	171	7.07
4–5	305	5.4	156	4.79	149	6.16
5–6	318	5.6	176	5.4	142	5.88
More than 6	3599	63.4	2172	66.65	1427	59.04

Source: own elaboration.

Table 5. Twitter impact characteristics.

	Total	Tweets in Spanish	Tweets in English
Total users	5676 users	3259 (57.4%)	2417 (42.6%)
Tweets by user	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 1.65	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 1.64	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 1.66
Users of original tweets	3221 users	1222 (37.9%)	1999 (62.1%)
Average of original tweets per user	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 1.99	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 1.76	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 2.16
Average of followers per user	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 12,674.19	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 13,132.83	$\overline{\mathrm{X}}$ = 12,055.78
Potential impacts	139,930,884	76,731,318 (54.8%)	63,199,566 (45.2%)
Potential reach	71,938,725	42,799,899 (59.5%)	29,138,826 (40.5%)

Source: own elaboration.

Figure 1. Distribution of users and tweets published in Spanish between March and December 2020. The graph reflects the interest of Twitter users in the tweets published on the activities of Pope Francis. Source: data processed with Tweet Binder.

Figure 2. Distribution of users and tweets published in English between March and December 2020. The graph reflects the interest of Twitter users in the tweets published about Pope Francis’s activities. Source: data processed with Tweet Binder.

Table 6. General characteristics of users and tweets related to the study.

	Total		Tweets in Spanish		Tweets in English
	9367		5351 (57.1%)		4016 (42.9%)
Recovered tweets	n	%	n	%	n	%
Original tweets	3221	34.4	1222	22.8	1999	49.8
Retweets	6146	65.6	4129	77.2	2017	50.2
Text tweets	243	5.4	97	1.8	146	3.6
Responses	246	2.6	43	0.8	203	5.1
Tweets with links and images	2833	30.2	1106	20.7	1727	43.0

Source: own elaboration.

Table 7. Distribution of categories according to sentiment.

	Total			Tweets in Spanish			Tweets in English
	Neutral	Positive	Negative	Neutral	Positive	Negative	Neutral	Positive	Negative
Total tweets	6210	1838	1316	3737	987	625	2473	851	691
	66.3	19.6	14.1	69.9	18.5	11.7	61.6	21.2	17.2
Potential impacts	97,107,465	19,355,532	23,466,854	63,506,936	7,031,660	6,192,308	33,600,529	12,323,872	17,274,546
	69.4	13.8	16.8	82.8	9.2	8.1	53.2	19.5	27.3
Users	3962	1369	970	2393	791	472	1569	578	498
	62.9	21.7	15.4	65.5	21.6	12.9	59.3	21.9	18.8
Link/Images	1976	431	423	796	152	156	1180	279	267
	69.8	15.2	14.9	72.1	13.8	14.1	68.4	16.2	15.5
Retweets	4020	1344	782	2861	814	454	1159	530	328
	65.4	21.9	12.7	69.3	19.7	11.0	57.5	26.3	16.3
Original tweets	2190	494	534	876	173	171	1314	321	363
	68.1	15.4	16.6	71.8	14.2	14.0	65.8	16.1	18.2

Source: own elaboration.

Figure 3. Distribution of users and sentiment analysis in tweets published in Spanish between March and December 2020. “Neutral” tweets become more frequent. In the first weeks, once the pandemic has been declared, tweets with “positive” sentiment are more relevant, coinciding with the event in St. Peter's Square. Source: data processed with Tweet Binder.

Figure 4. Distribution of users and sentiment analysis in tweets published in English between March and December 2020. A similar trend is maintained with respect to tweets published in Spanish (see Figure 3). “Neutral” tweets become more frequent. In the first weeks, once the pandemic has been declared, tweets with “positive” sentiment are more relevant, coinciding with the event in St. Peter's Square. Source: data processed with Tweet Binder.