ABSTRACT
[Objective] This paper tries to measure the netizens' trust in government microblogs during public health emergencies, and then explores reasons for the changes. [Methods] First, we calculated the trust from the comments on government microblogs with the comment objects, the topic similarity between comments and microblogs, as well as their sentiments. Then, we added the numbers of likes and forwards/retweets to decide the comprehensive trust of the netizens toward the government microblogs. [Results] We examined out model with microblog data on COVID-19 and found that topics related to industrial and government efforts fighting the pandemic enhanced the trust in government microblogs. There were great differences in the development trends and reasons of the trust in government microblogs from different fields. [Limitations] We only used the events and the microbloggers as the objects of comments. [Conclusions] The proposed model could help government agencies improve decision making, public trust, and lead online opinion during public health emergencies. © 2022, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.