An analysis of the social trends focused on Greek life activities and the spread of COVID-19 among college students living on campus.
By: Kendall Parrish
Analysis Time Frame: August 14th – August 28th, 2020
Overall Trends:
● Spikes in conversations about fraternity and sorority housing across campuses
● Majority of the conversations about Greek life and COVID-19 is negative (55.7% Negative Sentiment)
● Users have been reporting the rapid spread of the virus across members in the same Greek organizations
● Growing concern over students involved in Greek life not taking safety precautions to avoid the spread of COVID-19
As summer 2020 winds down and the fall semester begins, college campuses across America are preparing for their students to return to their on-campus housing arrangements and mask up for class.
Students have been moving onto campuses across the country over the past few weeks and getting comfortable with no longer learning from home. Unfortunately, many universities are now requiring their students to pack up their belongings and go back home due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 among students. Naturally, the media looked to large groups of students to blame, throwing Greek life at the center of attention with 21,800 tweets in the past two weeks.
The media trend was relatively low until August 15th when the conversation started to increase. The largest spike was on August 17th with 4,700 tweets centered around Greek life activities and their impact on students testing positive for COVID-19. The conversations from overall engagement held a negative sentiment.
On August 17th, the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill sent all their students home and announced online learning for the rest of the semester only one week after they moved in. This was a major indicator for trends in the media as schools such as University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Oklahoma State, and many others began reporting the rising number of COVID-19 cases among their students.
With the huge increases in COVID-19 cases, students pointed to their peers in Greek organizations for congregating in groups without wearing masks or properly social distancing. While the Greek activities varied across universities, most sororities and fraternities were participating in their annual recruitment events, or “rush,” the week of August 17th. Some colleges required strict safety regulations for rush including online-only events, while others left the decision up to individual organizations. The relaxed policies seemed to have driven students to forget about the dangers of the current pandemic and resume normal socialization and partying. Pressure has been building on fraternities and sororities as it is reported they are congregating and putting each other at risk of contracting COVID-19, especially during Bid Day activities which occur immediately after recruitment.
Facebook has been steady in the conversations surrounding student organizations resuming their activities. There was a total of 163 posts throughout the two-week time frame of analysis. Most of the discussions involved sharing news articles about the lack of safety measures from Greek organizations influencing the spread of COVID-19, mostly with negative sentiment trends.
YouTube has been relatively prominent in the conversation trends as many current students have been sharing their own experiences returning to campus including the Greek life policies introduced on their campus.
Sororities in particular utilized Instagram as a way to promote their activities. As many affiliations have posted photos of their members wearing masks together, others have been sharing their obvious avoidance of safety precautions during recruitment week events. In some instances, organizations have had to change the privacy settings on their accounts after receiving overwhelming amounts of negative feedback on their posts. The popular hashtags #speakupforstudentsafety and #bidday2020 each generated over 1,000 posts on Instagram.
TikTok has been mostly generating opinions on Greek life activities based on videos from students at various universities all over the country. Many students are using the platform to “expose” their school’s Greek organizations who have blatantly ignored safety precautions after returning to campus, saying “Greek life is ruining it for the rest of us [students].” Others have been quick to call out students not involved in Greek life participating in similar activities, most notably gathering in large groups and partying. These conversations point out that there is an unfair focus on Greek life when the spread of COVID-19 is due to the entire student body not following proper safety guidelines.
Overall, with the return of college students on campus and student organizations’ activities, the media trends put a large amount of attention on Greek life to follow safety standards. The soaring cases of COVID-19 have stirred conversations suggesting that Greek organizations are solely responsible for the spread of the virus across universities, pressuring large sororities and fraternities to follow safety guidelines. While the topic is slowly quieting, we can expect to see more conversations surrounding the college student experience, including the contributions of Greek organizations, as the semester progresses and COVID-19 changes university plans and policies.
Full analysis:
Since August 14th, there have been 21,800 tweets (up 317%) containing the following keywords:
● Keyword Group 1: Coronavirus AND Greek life, Covid AND Greek life, Covid19 AND Greek life, Covid-19 AND Greek life
● Keyword Group 2 : Coronavirus AND sorority, Coronavirus AND sororities, Covid AND sorority, Covid AND sororities, Covid19 AND sorority, Covid19 AND sororities, Covid-19 AND sorority, Covid-19 AND sororities
● Keyword Group 3 : Coronavirus AND fraternities, Coronavirus AND fraternity, Covid AND fraternity, Covid AND fraternities, Covid19 AND fraternity, Covid19 AND fraternities, Covid-19 AND fraternity, Covid-19 AND fraternities
Impact
● Group 1: 2,540 (9.2%)
● Group 2: 13,149 (48.1%)
● Group 3: 11,978 (42.7%)
Trends in Conversation
On August 17th, there were 4658 tweets about COVID-19 and Greek life activities:
● Many students had just begun moving back into their housing arrangements for the school year, fueling the spread of COVID-19 among groups living together and congregating – sorority and fraternity housing included
● Many Greek organizations were at the start of their recruitment activities (via in-person or online methods varying across schools)
● Reported that high number of members within the same Greek organizations were testing positive for COVID-19
● UNC – Chapel Hill announced over 130 COVID-19 cases the first week after move-in and required undergraduate students move-out, switching to a completely online platform
Greek organizations promoting wearing masks and practicing social distancing through online recruitment
● #virtualrecruitment – 100+ posts
● #bidday2020 – 1000+ posts
● #onlinerush2020 – 100+ posts
● #speakupforstudentsafety – 1000+ posts
● #speakupforstudents – 1000+ posts
