Using the COVID-19 Pandemic to Assess the Influence of News Affect on Online Mental Health-Related Search Behavior Across the United States: Integrated Sentiment Analysis and the Circumplex Model of Affect.

This study demonstrated promise in applying the circumplex model of affect to written content and provided a practical example for how circumplex theory can be integrated with sentiment analysis techniques to interrogate mental health-related associations. The findings from pandemic-specific news headlines highlighted arousal, flux, and spin as potentially significant affect-based foci for further study. Future efforts may also benefit from more expansive sentiment analysis approaches to more broadly test the practical application and theoretical capabilities of the circumplex model of affect on text-based data.