Exploratory Analysis of a Social Media Network in Sri Lanka during the COVID-19 Virus Outbreak

Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple aspects of human life were subjected to unprecedented changes, globally. In Sri Lanka, a developing country located in South Asia, it was possible to observe a range of events that arose due to the influence of the COVID-19 virus outbreak. Thus, the people of Sri Lanka used Social Media to voice their opinions regarding such events and those involved in them, enabling the ideal avenue to explore the social perception. However, the outcome of such actions was at certain times detrimental. This study was conducted as an attempt to identify the reasons for such instances as well as to identify the behaviours of the Sri Lankan populace during such a crisis event. To support this study, observations, as well as data of related posts from a sample of 50 sources, were manually collected from the most popular social media platform in Sri Lanka, Facebook. The posts considered spanned until approximately a month after the initial major virus outbreak in the country and contained content that even vaguely related to the virus. Utilising such data, various forms of analyses such as topic significance and topic co-occurrences were conducted. The findings highlight, while there can be social detrimental ideas shared, the majority of the posts point constructive and positive thoughts suggesting the successful influence from the cultural and social values Sri Lanka society promotes throughout.