Carbon neutrality vs. neutralité carbone: A comparative study on French and English users’ perceptions and social capital on Twitter

Abstract

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Carbon neutrality is one of the most critical global concerns at present. As one of the largest social media, Twitter is used widely by individuals, organisations, and government agencies to share their comments and perceptions on carbon neutrality. This study collected 26425 English and 20331 French tweets to compare the differences between French and English tweets. Social network analysis found that users in the French social networks interacted more frequently than the English ones. The geodesic analysis evidenced that the connection of any two users required about five intermediate users on average in French networks, while English ones required seven intermediate users. The modularity metrics of the English network were higher, indicating that users in English networks did not communicate with different clusters and people in carbon neutrality issues. In addition, the French network of carbon neutrality activists comprised politicians, government agencies, journalists, NGOs, and companies, while those in the English network mainly included companies, media, and politicians. Sentiment analysis and independent samples t-test have confirmed that despite the types of activists and the interactions between clusters being different, negative Tweets were more than positive ones in English and French networks, especially in French networks. It may be caused by people’s dissatisfaction with the government’s current carbon neutrality policy. By analysing the social pattern on Twitter, the research results allow people to know more about the means to enhance carbon-neutral knowledge sharing, which has the policy and social significance for addressing climate change.

Keywords

• carbon neutrality
• Twitter
• social network analysis
• sentiment analysis
• social capital