The world has been living for the past two days with the news that Joe Biden has resigned from running for the US presidential election. The statement was posted by Joe Biden on July 21, 2024 on the X platform, and it triggered countless comments.
Statement full of emotions
We intend not to get into the motives behind this decision, or what effects it will have on political grounds. We wanted to see what kind of emotions President Joe Biden included in his statement and what kind of emotions might accompany the statistical US citizens reading it.
Source: https://x.com/JoeBiden/status/1815080881981190320
First, we measured the level of arousal and sentiment
Analyzing the content of President Joe Biden’s statement, one can see that it was imbued with positive sentiment and a high level of agitation. The level of agitation may indicate a high personal commitment to the President in the content conveyed in the statement. One more fact should be emphasized. The decision to resign as a candidate should necessarily evoke emotions in Joe Biden that create a negative sentiment, but this is not evident in the sentiment analysis. The content of the statement is filled with positive sentiment, and this is probably how it is read by the statistical viewer.
What emotions were dominant
The sentiment picture is influenced by individual emotions and their intensity builds its level. Analyzing the statement as a whole stands out on the side of emotions considered positive emotions of trust and joy. In the latter case, joy should be understood as a feeling of satisfaction. On the other hand, among the negative emotions, the highest intensity was recorded for sadness and fear (read in this case as anxiety).
As you can see, only in two paragraphs of the statement, the intensities of the emotions of sadness and fear (concern) are comparable or slightly higher than the positive emotions. In the fourth paragraph, when the President mentions the time of crisis caused by the pandemic – here fear (apprehension) stands out. In contrast, in the fifth paragraph when he writes about his resignation from running for re-election, sadness stands out. In the remaining paragraphs, the positive emotions far outweigh the negative ones. This state of affairs means that the entire statement can evoke a positive sentiment in the audience. Here, we point out that when we speak of the recipients, we mean the statistical recipient (without going into their political preferences).