Concerned or Apathetic? Using Social Media Platform (Twitter) to Gauge the Public Awareness about Wildlife Conservation

A Case Study of the Illegal Rhino Trade

Datos Bibliográficos

ID15465698
AutoresSiqing Shan (Beihang University), Xijie Ju (Beihang University, autor de correspondencia), Yigang Wei (0000-0001-6190-2241, Beihang University), Xin Wen (0000-0002-2558-3930, Beihang University)
Año2022
Volumen19
Número11
Páginas6869-6869
Fecha de publicación2022-06-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1661-7827 • E-ISSN: 1660-4601
EditorialMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.3390/ijerph19116869
PMID35682453
OpenAlexW4281712734
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas51

The illegal wildlife trade is resulting in worldwide biodiversity loss and species' extinction. It should be exposed so that the problems of conservation caused by it can be highlighted and resolutions can be found. Social media is an effective method of information dissemination, providing a real-time, low-cost, and convenient platform for the public to release opinions on wildlife protection. This paper aims to explore the usage of social media in understanding public opinions toward conservation events, and illegal rhino trade is an example. This paper provides a framework for analyzing rhino protection issues by using Twitter. A total of 83,479 useful tweets and 33,336 pieces of users' information were finally restored in our database after filtering out irrelevant tweets. With 2422 records of trade cases, this study builds up a rhino trade network based on social media data. The research shows important findings: (1) Tweeting behaviors are somewhat affected by the information of traditional mass media. (2) In general, countries and regions with strong negative sentiment tend to have high volume of rhino trade cases, but not all. (3) Social celebrities' participation in activities arouses wide public concern, but the influence does not last for more than a month. NGOs, GOs, media, and individual enterprises are dominant in the dissemination of information about rhino trade. This study contributes in the following ways: First, this paper conducts research on public opinions toward wildlife conservation using natural language processing technique. Second, this paper offers advice to governments and conservationist organizations, helping them utilize social media for protecting wildlife

Biology · Business · Internet privacy · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Public relations · Social media · Wildlife · Wildlife trade · World Wide Web · Animal and Plant Science Education · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Computer Science · Digital Marketing and Social Media · Law · Ecology