Wind energy

Influencing the dynamics of the public opinion formation through the retweet network

Bibliographic Data

ID7515960
AuthorsLoretta Mastroeni (0000-0001-8926-8924, Roma Tre University), Maurizio Naldi (0000-0002-0903-398X, Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta), Pierluigi Vellucci (0000-0002-4152-8341, Roma Tre University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume194
Pages122748-122748
Publication date2023-07-26
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTechnological Forecasting and Social Change (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-1625 • E-ISSN: 1873-5509
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.techfore.2023.122748
OpenAlexW4385320732
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited116

Wind power is one of the primary renewable sources that are getting increasing support as a means of addressing climate changes. The debate on its use takes place on social media as a fast and unfiltered forum to express one’s opinions. In this paper, we analyse the discussion concerning wind power coming up on Twitter. We measure the influence of opinions (and of the twitterers expressing them) by building a retweet network. A strong concentration of retweets is observed through the use of both the retweet distribution and the Hirschman–Herfindahl Index (HHI): the discussion appears to be driven by a handful of twitterers who are heavily retweeted. We provide a classification of such top influencers by their role in society. A single climate activist is, by far, the top influencer. International and governmental agencies come second, and energy consultants come third. Companies play quite a minor role, on a par with generalist individual twitterers, while scientists are the least-retweeted category. Those top influencers are also constantly present from month to month, while the overwhelming majority of twitterers change from month to month. Leading energy-related events appear to have a short-lived influence on the discussion (two weeks after their taking place

Business · Climate change · Energy (signal processing · Influencer marketing · Opinion leadership · Political science · Public opinion · Public relations · Renewable energy · Statistics · Complex Network Analysis Techniques · Ecology · Engineering · Law · Marketing · Mathematics · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence · Social Media and Politics

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