Voice-activated personal assistants and privacy concerns: a Twitter analysis
Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing
ISSN: 2040-7122
Article publication date: 9 November 2023
Issue publication date: 14 August 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand the extent of privacy concerns regarding voice-activated personal assistants (VAPAs) on Twitter. It investigates three key areas: (1) the effect of privacy-related press coverage on public sentiment and discussion volume; (2) the comparative negativity of privacy-focused conversations versus general conversations; and (3) the specific privacy-related topics that arise most frequently and their impact on sentiment and discussion volume.
Design/methodology/approach
A dataset of 441,427 tweets mentioning Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri from July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2021 were collected. Privacy-related press coverage has also been monitored. Sentiment analysis was conducted using the dictionary-based software LIWC and VADER, whereas text mining packages in R were used to identify privacy-related issues.
Findings
Negative privacy-related news significantly increases both negativity and volume in Twitter conversations, whereas positive news only boosts volume. Privacy-related tweets were notably more negative than general tweets. Specific keywords were found to either increase or decrease the sentiment and discussion volume. Additionally, a temporal evolution in sentiment, with general attitudes toward VAPAs becoming more positive, but privacy-specific discussions becoming more negative was observed.
Originality/value
This research augments the existing online privacy literature by employing text mining methodologies to gauge consumer sentiments regarding privacy concerns linked to VAPAs, a topic currently underexplored. Furthermore, this research uniquely integrates established theories from privacy calculus and social contract theory to deepen our analysis.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: This work is part of the project PID2019-1,08554RB-I00/ funded by AEI/10.13039/5,0110,0011,033.
Citation
Alzate, M., Arce Urriza, M. and Cortiñas, M. (2024), "Voice-activated personal assistants and privacy concerns: a Twitter analysis", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 611-630. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-02-2023-0050
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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