Social networking services as new venue for public perceptions of energy issues: The case of Paris agreement

Abstract

As the energy industry became one of the most important aspects in our society, many nations took significant efforts toward energy policies and plans reflecting on public perceptions of energy issues. To efficiently address it, the current study collects user-created contents in social networking services and proposes a new word network model for swiftly observing public perceptions regarding energy issues. The results indicate that the proposed model and employed methodologies can successfully address public perceptions regarding specific energy issues. Based on the results of the network model and comparison with traditional media channels in this study, we found that social networking services can be one of the notable resources for exploring public perceptions of specific energy issues. In particular, although the majority of energy-related issues were presented and reported by traditional media channels and responded by social networking services, social networking services can show faster responsiveness than traditional media channels regarding several energy issues, which were crucially related to economic (cost) or accident-related events, and categorized as energy-related threats or burdens. This means that the public can immediately respond to specific energy-related issues that may directly affect an individual’s situation or environment compared to more general and international energy issues.