Government Surveillance, National Security, and the American Rights: Using Sentiment Analysis to Extract Citizen Opinions

Abstract

After the ex-National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden¹ disclosures of the National Security Agency surveillance of Americans’ online and phone communications, the Pew Research Center² administrated a panel survey to collect data concerning Americans’ opinions about privacy and security. This survey has mixed types of qualitative questions (closed and open-ended). In this context, to our knowledge, until today, no research has been applied on the open-ended part of these data. In this chapter, first the authors present their findings from applying sentiment analysis and topic extraction methods; second, the authors demonstrate their analysis to sentiments polarities; and finally, the authors interpret the semantic relationships between topics and their associated negativity, positivity, and neutral sentiments.

Citation

Zhuhadar, L.P. and Ciampa, M. (2019), "Government Surveillance, National Security, and the American Rights: Using Sentiment Analysis to Extract Citizen Opinions", Visvizi, A. and Lytras, M.D. (Ed.) Politics and Technology in the Post-Truth Era (Emerald Studies in Politics and Technology), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 129-141. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-983-620191009