ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1624689
Awakening, Condensation, and Sedimentation: The Correlation Mechanism Between Topics and Emotions in Online Public Opinion from the Psychosocial Anchoring Perspective
Provisionally accepted
- Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
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Emotions significantly shape how publics interpret and engage with crises on social media, yet most public-opinion research treats thematic structures and affective dynamics in isolation.Drawing on social representation theory and psychosocial anchoring, this mixed-methods study examines the interplay of topics and emotions during the 2023 "Rat Head and Duck Neck" food safety incident on Chinese social media. By analyzing posts through LDA topic modeling, TextCNN-based sentiment analysis, and qualitative content analysis, the analysis reveals three dominant emotions: disgust, anger, and satire, and three central topics: food, trust, and power. These elements co-evolve via three interaction patterns: awakening, condensation, and sedimentation. These patterns not only map the evolution of online discourse but also reveal psychosocial mechanisms critical for designing more emotionally attuned digital risk-communication and management strategies in food safety crises.
Keywords: Online public opinion, Food Safety Crises, Social Representation Theory, Psychosocial Anchoring, Topics-Emotions Dynamics
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 18 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yu, Ma, Yu and Fang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hong Yu, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
Menglan Ma, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
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