Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Objectives: Territorial disputes over the West Philippine Sea are an emerging issue in the Philippines and other ASEAN Members with China. The only source of information is coming from the media like the television, online news portals, and social media. In line with this, this study aimed to unveil Netizens emotions and common issues found from the different news articles. Methods/Statistical Analysis: This study scraped the different conversations from Twitter and online news articles published from January 2018 to April 2018 using a Pluchik algorithm for emotions, Valence Awareness Dictionary sEntiment Reasoner (VADER) algorithm for sentiment analysis, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) using Gibbs Sampling – Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) for topic modeling. 2500 times of simulation were performed and validated before developing the hidden themes that are prevalent in the different news articles and supported by Netizens emotions. Findings: Results revealed five (5) underlying themes found in the different news articles such as The assertion of Philippine Sovereignty over Wes Philippine Sea Claim, Philippine-China Co-Ownership and Joint Exploitation of Natural Resources in the Disputed Islands, Intensive Military Presence, Freedom of Navigation, and Military Facilities Buildup in the Disputed Island, China-Philippine Relations through Bilateral Agreement, Trade, Military Support, and Security, and One China Policy through Territorial and Defense Power. Also, Netizens Sentiments showed a majority of them who tweeted were neutral (95%) and only few who were negative (2.67%) and positive (2.33%) where the majority of their emotions through tweets were classified as Joy, Surprise, and Sadness. Only a few tweets were classified as anger, disgust, anticipation, and fear. The findings were unique since it focuses on the soft evidence and the actual opinions, views, and emotions relative to the issues on the disputed islands. Moreover, this result could give insights to the appropriate authorities in dealing with the situations in the West Philippine Sea. Application/Improvements: Further studies maybe conducted by using other social media like Facebook in understanding the emotions and views of the Netizens. 

Keywords: Asia, Content Analysis, Data Mining, Deciphering, Gibbs Sampling, Latent Dirichlet Allocation, Plutchik Wheel of Emotion, Simulation, Topic Modeling, VADER Sentiment Analysis