Establishment of a social listening mechanism on refugee crisis

BACKGROUND: The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 captured the public attention. For the Republic of Moldova, a border country that sheltered the highest number of refugees reported to its local population, managing the refugee crisis became a challenge, including countering mis- and disinformation with major impact on public health. The paper aims to identify the social listening mechanism that allows to track rumors regarding the refugees crisis and propose recommendations for adapting public messages. METHODS: The Social Listening soft Talkwalker was used to monitor and identify conversations on the refugee crisis in the Republic of Moldova between September 2022-March 2023, by developing a search syntax (with a health focus on services, vaccination, Covid-19, etc.). A second step was a qualitative analysis of the messages and comments, with recommendations. RESULTS: A total of 131,5K of results were detected with a 1.1 million Engagement. The performance remained constant, with sporadic peaks (3 most evident) and decreases on weekend days. The net sentiment is negative (-25,8 %), being dominated by anger, followed by fear and sadness. In general, prevail messages of support for the Ukrainian people, but there are also harsh criticisms of the authorities. One of the propagated ideas is that too little is being done for the local population and more support is being shown for refugees. Netizens tend to comment or share material for expressing their political views. Posts about the refugee crisis (creating better conditions in maternity hospitals or employing refugees), are less popular than those about the military conflict as a whole. Potential stigma issues have to be analyzed regarding displaced persons from Ukraine. CONCLUSIONS: Undermining trust in the authorities is a good opportunity for disinformation, that's why the subject should be fact-checked. Enhancing communication of public authorities is essential. KEY MESSAGES: • Refugee crisis have a major impact on public health and social listening help managing it effectively. The mechanism developed (including the search syntax) can be adapted for other countries. • The research shows how monitoring conversations on social media regarding refugees can help authorities counter mis and disinformation and adapt their public messages.