'Affective Publics':Performing Trust on Danish Twitter during the COVID-19 Lockdown

In Denmark, as with elsewhere in the world, Twitter has emerged as an important arena of public discussion on issues relating to COVID-19 pandemic, including the handling of the crisis by state authorities and health institutions. Based on approximately 140,000 tweets harvested from Danish Twitter in the period between 24 February and 28 April 2020, this report explores how tweeting about mis/trust on this digital platform can be understood as a kind of biopolitical nationalism. Combining computational and qualitative methods, we identify shifting performances of mis/trust and other affects on Danish Twitter, and suggest that this “affective public” plays a key role in the public response to the coronavirus crisis.