We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Beyond climate change? Environmental discourse on the planetary boundaries in Twitter networks
Summary
Researchers analyzed social media discussions on Twitter about planetary boundaries beyond climate change, including issues like chemical pollution and microplastics. They found that while climate change dominates environmental discourse online, discussions about other critical environmental boundaries receive significantly less attention. The study suggests that broader public awareness of interconnected environmental threats, including plastic pollution, needs to be cultivated.
Abstract Social media are increasingly used to obtain and disseminate information about environmental issues. Yet, environmental communication research has focused mainly on social media discussions pertaining to climate change, while overlooking public awareness and discourse regarding the other planetary boundaries (i.e., important and interlinked environmental issues other than climate change). Moreover, while discussions about climate change are often found to be polarising, it remains to be seen if this extends to other environmental issues. We used network analysis and topic modelling to analyse two million environment-related tweets and identified nine ‘green communities’ of users. Climate change was the most popular issue across all communities and other issues like biodiversity loss were discussed infrequently. The discourse was less polarised than previously assumed, was largely pro-environmental, and originated more from the Global North than the Global South. The relevance of our findings for policymakers and researchers in environmental communication is discussed.
Sign in to start a discussion.
More Papers Like This
Divergent shifts in public ecological attention following the COVID-19 pandemic
Researchers analyzed over a decade of social media data from South Korea to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped public attention to environmental issues including microplastics. The study found that the pandemic acted as a catalyst that restructured how people connect environmental topics, with public discourse around microplastics notably shifting toward more positive sentiment while climate crisis discussions became more negative.
Twitter data analysis to assess the interest of citizens on the impact of marine plastic pollution
Analysis of approximately 140,000 tweets about marine plastic pollution found that public engagement peaked in response to high-profile events like media reports and plastic ban announcements, with most activity from non-expert users sharing alarming content, while scientific accounts generated less engagement, suggesting that science communication strategies need rethinking.
Campaigning Environmental Conservation During the Pandemic: A Social Media Reception Analysis
This study analyzed how environmental conservation campaigns shifted to social media during COVID-19 lockdowns to maintain public engagement. Social media campaigns about plastic pollution have become important tools for raising awareness of microplastic contamination and motivating policy change.
Addressing chemical pollution in biodiversity research
This paper argues that chemical pollution, including microplastics, deserves far more attention in biodiversity research alongside climate change and habitat loss. Evidence shows that anthropogenic chemicals are a growing threat to ecosystems worldwide, yet pollution is often left out of biodiversity studies. The authors call for interdisciplinary collaboration between ecologists and environmental chemists to better understand and combat pollution-driven biodiversity decline.
Analysis of Popular Social Media Topics Regarding Plastic Pollution
Researchers applied five topic modelling techniques including LDA, HDP, LSI, NMF, and STM to 274,404 plastic pollution-related tweets to identify dominant public discourse themes on social media. The analysis revealed that certain techniques were more effective at capturing topic coherence and prevalence, providing policymakers with tools to understand public opinion and target environmental communication strategies.