How Did We Tweet About Teachers: Lessons Learned From Twitter During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 4:20 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Media Ecologies and Spaces Through Critical Lenses (Table 9)

Abstract

Twitter has been increasingly used by teachers and other educational stakeholders to connect since the COVID-19 pandemic. To explore how teachers and teaching were discussed on Twitter over time during the pandemic, a public COVID Twitter dataset was sampled to obtain tweets that mentioned “teacher” from four distinct COVID phases, using Twitter’s Application Programming Interface and keyword search techniques. Five themes emerged from a thematic analysis, reflecting various perspectives and attitudes towards teachers in COVID. Findings support the role of Twitter as an affect-driven affinity space that allows for diverse expressions. The presence of misinformation and potentially polarizing views on Twitter regarding teachers highlight a need to create a trusting social media environment for educational stakeholders in future crises.

Author

• Yiyun Fan, Binghamton University - SUNY