Explore public concerns about environmental protection on Sina Weibo: evidence from text mining

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2023 Oct;30(47):104067-104085. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-29757-2. Epub 2023 Sep 12.

Abstract

The increasingly serious problem of ecological environmental pollution warns the importance of human environmental protection behavior. However, public attention to environmental protection plays an important role in solving environmental problems. Therefore, in order to explore the environmental concerns of Chinese residents, the trends in time and space, the relationship between online retweets, and the extraction of environmental concerns, this study analyzed the data of Sina Weibo users and their comments on related posts. At the same time, we used the text mining analysis method to analyze the social media text data, and the results are as follows. In that analysis of concern about environmental protection, women show a stronger attitude and willingness to protect the environment than men, and the public in economically developed areas is more concerned. In order to further investigate the public's environmental concerns, this study also utilized the PageRank algorithm to further study the forwarding relationships between users. The study found that celebrities and some good media organizations can attract environmental attention. Finally, we use pyLDAvis technology to visualize and analyze popular environmental themes and propose reasonable countermeasures and suggestions to enhance public environmental awareness based on the research results.

Keywords: Environmental concern; Internet forwarding; Public concern; Text mining.

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19*
  • China
  • Conservation of Natural Resources
  • Data Mining
  • Environmental Pollution
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Social Media*