Contentious Politics of Pandemics: Comparison of Telegram Networks of the bubonic plague 1900-1903 and Twitter Network of Covid-19 2020

Byungyeon Yun, Korea University

This study examines comparison of communication networks of two pandemic cases, Bubonic plague in 1900-1904 and the coronavirus disease(COVID-19) in 2020. During the Bubonic plague in San Francisco in 1900-1903, state, federal and health authorities have shown differences in coping with the highly fatal infectious disease by political position. Compared to the current COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco plague was smaller in its infection circle, yet its extreme fatality led to highly polarized politics over the infectious. This study compares political polarization occurred in the bubonic plague pandemic and the Coronavirus outbreak using social network analysis in a historical perspective. The polarized discourse dynamics among state, federal government and health authorities that are commonly found in both cases. Empirical data of bubonic plague networks are based on San Francisco’s telegram data. To measure political polarization with COVID-19, the study uses the twitter data on COVID-19 response from the state, the federal government, and the health authorities accounts from January to December 2020. Utilizing textual data of 20th century pandemic and 21st century COVID-19, the study aims to capture the pattern of polarized communication around the infectious disease in both pandemics. This study provides a method to extract common pattern of polarization with different data from two distinct pandemics. The discovery of common network patterns will provide further understanding of how bureaucratic and political dynamics around the pandemic interact with unfolding trajectories of the infectious.

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 Presented in Session 111. Contentious Politics