Discrediting Strategy in Internet Comments to Publications made by the Mayors of New York and London

This research featured the lingua-personolological aspect of linguistic means and speech techniques connected with the use of discrediting strategy in online comments aimed at discrediting the authorities. The study was based on the methods of continuous sampling and linguistic analysis of official Facebook and Twitter pages of the mayors of New York and London. Lowering proved to be the leading strategy used in comments aimed at discrediting the government. The research revealed the prevailing tactics and techniques of the speech strategy for lowering, e.g. "analysis minus", insult, accusation, etc. Internet users appeared to have an individual style and vocabulary choice that depended on various subjective factors. The comments showed little trust for the government, which makes discrediting the authorities an important contemporary issue.

Determination of Guest Satisfaction by Text Mining

The satisfaction of guests is of paramount importance to ensure the continuity and profitability of hotels. This study aims to determine guests' satisfaction with hotels by analyzing the online comments of guests. The text mining method has been utilized in this study. 58,193 Turkish comments about 5-star hotels in Turkey have been examined. These comments have been subjected to frequency and association analysis by models with Rapid Miner program. It may be stated that the guests are satisfied with 5-star hotel management in Turkey, and they are also satisfied with hotels in general and the services provided by hotels.

Proposed Strategy for the Development of a Local Geopark at Mui Ne Red Sand Dunes, Phan Thiet, Vietnam - based on Tourist Perceptions and Experience from Taiwan

Vietnam attracts many tourists owing to its unique and diverse geological landscapes. The Vietnam tourism development strategy until 2030 sets a target to make tourism a more sustainable economic sector, in which the advantages of natural resources and development of a variety of tourism products are promoted. Binh Thuan province in central-south Vietnam, hosts many high potential geosites including Mui Ne Red Dunes. Although this is a popular tourist destination, there is no clear tourism strategy for this site and local communities now regulate tourism in an unsustainable way. Online comments from review databases (TripAdvisor and Google reviews) are analysed to find themes in tourism perceptions after a visit to the Red Sand Dunes. Main themes are found that negatively affect tourist perceptions, such as the extended pollution of the dunes, theft reports and disturbance by jeeps, ATV’s and motorbikes. Many tourists recommend that this site should be better managed. To conserve this area in the future, the development of an all-inclusive local geopark is suggested, based on the tourism perceptions and previous studies assessing this landscape. This strategy is adapted from the UNESCO geopark framework and an example of a recently established local sand dune geopark in Taiwan is discussed. Implementing a local geopark, following the steps described in this study, can be beneficial for sustainable development and local communities in this area, while also promoting environmental education and enhancing disaster risk reduction.

Visualizing and Comparing Online Travel Reviews of the Great Walls: A Data Mining Approach

This research employs two samples of heritage sites of the Great Wall of China (Ba daling Great Wall and Mu tianyu Great Wall) and their 21000 reviews on TripAdvisor to visualize and induce feature-related comparisons. Word2vec and D3.js are applied for statistical computing and graphing Minimal Spanning Tree (MST) and ThemeRiver. The applications of MST and ThemeRiver are used to delineate outstanding features and clearer feature relationships. In terms of methodology, we applied an innovative research route to combine MST with ThemeRiver to visualize travellers’ online comments. At the same time, the visual results obtained are combined with qualitative analysis to generate valuable, intuitive summaries that can be used for reference in future research. Practically, the results disclose that although both sites are highly enjoyed by tourists, they are significantly different in terms of service, infrastructure and scenery. This article has implications for policymakers and practitioners with regard to making use of online reviews to gather authentic visitor comments on the Great Wall.

“Toxic atmosphere effect”: Uncivil online comments cue negative audience perceptions of news outlet credibility

Uncivil user comments have been found to have a negative effect on how people perceive an issue featured in the news, a news story, or a journalist who reports a news story. To advance this line of research, we draw on expectancy violations theory and the concept of heuristic cues to theorize the toxic atmosphere effect. We theorize that incivility in online comment threads could pose an even larger challenge to news organizations by cuing news audience members to perceive an entire news outlet—not just an individual story—as lacking in credibility. Based on two experiments in the United States (Study 1, n = 520; Study 2, n = 1056), we show that exposure to incivility can lead people to perceive a news outlet as less credible even though the incivility did not directly attack the news outlet. Such effects hold true even when people are exposed to comment threads in which the first several comments are civil. Democratic and business implications are discussed.

The State Awaking Or Stealing?

The 2020 parliamentary elections in Croatia were held in an atmosphere marked by fear and anxiety because of negative consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, and riddled with other unresolved socio-economic and political issues. Therefore, choosing appropriate political slogans that would reflect positive messages of hope, encouragement, and safety to the Croatian people seemed of utmost importance. This paper identifies and discusses political discourse strategies behind the creation of selected billboard slogans used in the pre-election period by different political parties and platforms. Taking into account the results of the elections, the research focuses on the negative reactions to the content of the slogans in the Croatian public space. For this purpose, a corpus of readers’ online comments was built and subjected to a computer sentiment analysis. The results show that the majority of citizens in the research sample created negative mental images of political agents and the policies they promote. Further investigation of the reasons for the negative perception and evaluation revealed that the politico-historical and situational contexts play a significant role in shaping the public opinion, specifically in times of crises and threats to public health and wellbeing.

Tematicheskaya struktura intolerantnogodiskursa

Thematic structure of the discourse of intolerance. The article presents a model of the thematic structure of hate speech as a form of intolerant discourse on vulnerable social groups singled out on the basis of protected characteristics. Four major thematic categories are identified: “Intuitive assessment”, “Characterization of the social group”, “Comparison of the group with other social groups” and “Position of the group in the discourse community”. Examples of verbalization of topics and subtopics of homophobic, sexist and xenophobic rhetoric in the online comments of Belarusian users in 2015–2019 are provided. Keywords: intolerant discourse, discourse of hate, hate speech, gender-based hate speech, sexist hate speech, xenophobic hate speech, sexual orientation-based hate speech, online discourse, online comment