Sentiment breakdown by topic
In order to interpret the dynamics of the sentiment indicator, the newspaper texts are divided into the following four main topics: "economy", "politics", "business" and "financial markets". This can be done by identifying certain key words which are relevant for each main topic. For example, for the main topic of "politics" it is "government", and for "economy" it is "inflation".
Figure 2 shows the breakdown of the sentiment indicator into the four main topics. The figure also offers various episodes. For example, the negative sentiment surrounding the COVID-19 period from March 2020 onwards is strongly and directly visible in every main topic. This reflects the picture that the COVID-19 crisis affects all areas of society, and is therefore also visible in many newspaper headlines. This clearly differs from the state of the indicator around the financial crisis. The run-up to the crisis in 2007 was mainly visible in negative sentiment surrounding financial markets. It was only later in 2008 and 2009 that the change in sentiment also became visible in the other main topics.