Reading the Public Mind to Emigrate, as Expressed over Tweets

Hyekyung Woo, Seoul National University
Youngtae Cho, Seoul National University
Eunyoung Shim, Seoul National University

We examined how Koreans’ public mind to migrate has changed over time by text-mining the Twitter key words. To think about emigration is personal. However, it is possible that ideation of or intention to migrate may be developed at a population level too, particularly when a serious event occurs that causes public emotional responses. To date, a survey has been a widely employed method to read the public mind of emigration. It is a merit that findings from a survey often represent the characteristics o f entire population. However, to read the public mind developed immediately after a certain event through survey is inevitably limited, since the survey is not timely and the findings are confined only within the structure of questionnaire. Employing the text mining method and messages posted on Twitter, we suggest that social media data can be utilized to monitor and read spontaneous public mind to emigrate.