scholarly journals Using Social Media Data to Evaluate Urban Parks Use during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author(s):  
Mihai Răzvan Niță ◽  
Miruna Arsene ◽  
Giorgiana Barbu ◽  
Alina Gabriela Cus ◽  
Mihail Ene ◽  
...  

In the context of increasing urbanization and associated economic, social and environmental challenges, cities have increasingly acknowledged the importance of urban parks in delivering social, economic and environmental benefits to the population. The importance has been demonstrated also during the COVID-19 pandemic that generated lockdowns and reduced the capacity of urban inhabitants in accessing such benefits. The present study aims to determine how the presence in urban parks was reflected on social media during the pandemic period of 2020. We examined Instagram posts associated with a sample of eight urban parks in Bucharest, Romania and also the entire history of Google reviews between January and August 2020. The selection of parks was made according to their size, location in Bucharest, previous reported number of visitors and profile of attractiveness. Results revealed that the peak period of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first initiation of the lockdowns strongly affected the recreation and leisure activities that people performed almost daily in the parks of Bucharest. Reviews and comments of the population were not that focused on the pandemic even after the restrictions were lifted, but they evidenced the positive and negative aspects of each park. Our results can represent a useful instrument for local administrations in determining both the flow of visitors but also their perceptions towards the endowments, landscape and most important management of urban parks.

2021 ◽  
pp. 127233
Author(s):  
Zhifang Wang ◽  
Yinglu Miao ◽  
Min Xu ◽  
Zhongwei Zhu ◽  
Salman Qureshi ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Carley ◽  
L. R. Carley ◽  
Jonathan Storrick

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anika Oellrich ◽  
George Gkotsis ◽  
Richard James Butler Dobson ◽  
Tim JP Hubbard ◽  
Rina Dutta

BACKGROUND Dementia is a growing public health concern with approximately 50 million people affected worldwide in 2017 and this number is expected to reach more than 131 million by 2050. The toll on caregivers and relatives cannot be underestimated as dementia changes family relationships, leaves people socially isolated, and affects the finances of all those involved. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to explore using automated analysis (i) the age and gender of people who post to the social media forum Reddit about dementia diagnoses, (ii) the affected person and their diagnosis, (iii) relevant subreddits authors are posting to, (iv) the types of messages posted and (v) the content of these posts. METHODS We analysed Reddit posts concerning dementia diagnoses. We used a previously developed text analysis pipeline to determine attributes of the posts as well as their authors to characterise online communications about dementia diagnoses. The posts were also examined by manual curation for the diagnosis provided and the person affected. Furthermore, we investigated the communities these people engage in and assessed the contents of the posts with an automated topic gathering technique. RESULTS Our results indicate that the majority of posters in our data set are women, and it is mostly close relatives such as parents and grandparents that are mentioned. Both the communities frequented and topics gathered reflect not only the sufferer's diagnosis but also potential outcomes, e.g. hardships experienced by the caregiver. The trends observed from this dataset are consistent with findings based on qualitative review, validating the robustness of social media automated text processing. CONCLUSIONS This work demonstrates the value of social media data sources as a resource for in-depth studies of those affected by a dementia diagnosis and the potential to develop novel support systems based on their real time processing in line with the increasing digitalisation of medical care.


Author(s):  
Philip Habel ◽  
Yannis Theocharis

In the last decade, big data, and social media in particular, have seen increased popularity among citizens, organizations, politicians, and other elites—which in turn has created new and promising avenues for scholars studying long-standing questions of communication flows and influence. Studies of social media play a prominent role in our evolving understanding of the supply and demand sides of the political process, including the novel strategies adopted by elites to persuade and mobilize publics, as well as the ways in which citizens react, interact with elites and others, and utilize platforms to persuade audiences. While recognizing some challenges, this chapter speaks to the myriad of opportunities that social media data afford for evaluating questions of mobilization and persuasion, ultimately bringing us closer to a more complete understanding Lasswell’s (1948) famous maxim: “who, says what, in which channel, to whom, [and] with what effect.”


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