Qualitative Modeling of Urban Interactions Mechanism on Social Media: Study of Content Published on Twitter and Instagram

Abstract

This article, with a theoretical lens made from the combination of "Good Urban Governance" and "Cultural Citizenship in the Age of Information", seeks to answer the question of how the two-way interaction of citizens and urban management can be understood through modern tools of information and communication technology. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of gaining an understanding of the public opinion flow in cyberspace, and finding a pattern of urban interactions in it. For this, 18095 Instagram posts and 48300 Tweets were collected, and their quantitative and qualitative classification was done by quantitative content analysis and thematic analysis method. Then, a model of urban interactions was drawn. According to the findings of this study, urban activist groups on Twitter and Instagram can be divided into five categories: "Urban Management", "Governing Actors Related to Urban Management", "Political Groups", "People" and "Mass Media". The comparison of Instagram and Twitter shows a significant difference in this regard, and it can be said that the focus on Twitter, due to the diversity of active groups in it, more than Instagram can reflect the state of urban interactions on social media. Unlike Instagram, Twitter is dominated by content with a negative orientation towards Tehran's urban management, and actor interactions sometimes take a hostile approach.

Keywords

• urban interactions
• social media
• twitter
• instagram
• tehran
• public opinion