During the COVID-19 pandemic Weibo topic change analysis and visualization

This paper hopes to study and grasp the law of its influence on people's emotions, which can provide decision-making basis for scientific governance, and enhance governance level and governance ability in the face of sudden major public health events. This study conducted an in-depth analysis of the daily Weibo hot search entries from December 2019 to March 2023, which spanned nearly three years. By analyzing the changes in microblog topics during the COVID-19 epidemic and the thematic characteristics of public information at different stages of public health emergencies, it explored the changes in the emotions and concerns of netizens at various stages of the epidemic development. On the whole, in the early and middle period of the epidemic, the public focused mainly on self-related information such as mentality adjustment and self-management of the epidemic; in the later period, the public focused mainly on information related to social behaviors such as return to work and epidemic prevention. Meanwhile, entertainment themes appeared in the center of public attention. In general, the focus of public attention has shifted from self-related to external attention. To some extent, it reflects a positive shift in public sentiment.