Sentiment and Affect Analysis on Social Media

Opinions are based on beliefs and views and are central to almost all human activities. Opinions and related concepts like sentiments, evaluations, attitudes, and emotions are the foci of study in the field of Sentiment Analysis (SA) and Opinion Mining. With the prodigious rise in the number of internet users across the globe, there is a colossal explosion of 'sentiments' available from social networking portals like Twitter and Facebook, blog sites, message boards, review websites, and user forums. The unstructured opinionated data available through these forums is a rich source of information and can be employed to mine real time feedback on any subject. The world-over, people seek the help of online reviews in making purchase decisions. According to a study conducted by the Kesley Group with comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, more than three-quarters of review readers in nearly every category reported that reviews had a significant influence on their purchases, with hotels ranking the highest