The stigma towards dementia on Twitter: A sentiment analysis of Dutch language tweets

People living with dementia are often faced with attitudes indicating stigma. Social media platforms, such as Twitter, can allow for self-expression and support, but can also be used to disseminate misinformation, which can reinforce existing stigma. In the present study, we explore whether the stigma toward dementia is present in Dutch language tweets. In total, 969 tweets containing dementia-related keywords were collected during a period of five months in 2019 and 2020. These were analyzed by means of a sentiment analysis, which we approached as a classification task. The tweets were coded into seven dimensions, i.e., information, joke, metaphor, organization, personal experience, politics, and ridicule, using a semi-automatic machine learning approach. The emerging correlations with our use of Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software for sentiment analysis validate our approach. In the present study, 9.29% of tweets contain ridicule, propagating stigmatic attitudes on Twitter.