LEVERAGING SOCIAL MEDIA DATA FOR COVID-19 STUDIES

Nowadays, social media networks have become widely preferred sources of information. Especially during the time of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, social media has been one of the most used platforms to get the latest news and
information related to COVID-19. Social media is popular because it offers free access to its registered users and allows them
to do posting, disseminate information and respond to others’ postings. With almost 4.6 billion social media users worldwide, it
is not surprising that the significant amount of information shared through these platforms could affect how people perceive and
cope with the pandemic that we are facing right now. With decent use, social media can be a beneficial digital tool to spread reliable news and public awareness for patients, clinicians and society. Specifically, this chapter describes linguistic, visual and
emotional indicators expressed in user disclosures. Thus, in this chapter, the related studies of social media platforms' usage during the COVID-19 pandemic are explored and discussed in detail. This chapter also categorises social media data used, and
introduces different deployed machine learning, feature engineering, natural language processing, survey methods, and
outlines directions for future research.