Sentiment Analysis of the Syrian Conflict on Twitter

Abstract

Social media have become an important means of imposing ideas and interests in social
conflicts. The Syrian conflict is analysed using sentiment analysis of tweets in order to establish how the sentiment shapes the modern political landscape and influences recipient knowledge. The importance of social networks and their potential in overthrowing regimes as well as in radicalization are highlighted. The authors suggest several stages that can be used for analysing tweets and how they impact the reader with selected narration. Sentiment analysis is used on a trained data set as a way to gain insight into tweets of different factions in the Syria conflict. Selected tweets on missile strikes were published on 14 April 2018 and the day after. The Twitter profiles of three different sides – pro-Assad, pro-West and anti-Assad – were also analysed. The results show that there is a real battle on social media with the purpose of influencing human emotions.