Tweeting the Environment #Brexit

Dr Jingrong Tong is Senior Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture at Brunel University London, UK. Her current research focuses on digital technology and journalism, social data analysis and environmental communication. She is the author of two books on investigative Journalism in China and the co-editor of an edited book on digital technology and journalism.Dr Landong Zuo is an IT Consultant and Data Scientist specialized in data mining, data analysis and Nature Language Processing, UK. His research interests include data integration, analysis and visualization in the fields of Semantic Web, Linked Data and Big Data.

• Chapter 1. IntroductionChapter 2. The Environment and PoliticsChapter 3. Twitter, the Media Ecology and Environmental Communication Chapter 4. Environmental Discourses on Twitter Chapter 5. Elite Domination in the Asymmetrical Twitter Space Chapter 6. Sparse “Communities” and their Green Bridges in Twitter NetworksChapter 7. Influential Social Actors: Competing for Discourses on Twitter Chapter 8. Twitter and Environmental Politics Chapter 9. Social Media Research: Towards an Inductive Approach

Tong, a lecturer in digital media and culture in the UK, and Zuo, an information technology consultant and data scientist specializing in data mining, data analysis, and natural language processing, examine Twitter discourses and networks about environmental considerations in the discussions about the UK's 2016 referendum to leave the European Union and its aftermath. They consider how the discourse is constructed in tweets on the environmental aspects of the referendum; how users were connected to each other in this environmental communication; which social actors influenced the discourses and networks and how they did so; and what the discourses, networks, and roles played by social actors suggest about environmental politics on Twitter and in the UK. They draw on discourse and network analysis of about 112,000 related tweets collected in real time between May and July 2016, discussing the relationship between environmental issues and politics and between Brexit and the environment; the media landscape within which Twitter exists and key debates in the fields of Twitter communication and environmental communication on Twitter; environmental discourses in tweets and the nature of the environmental considerations in the discussion about the referendum on Twitter; elite domination on Twitter; social network analysis of the environmental data; the tweeting practices and discursive arguments of influential social actors; and insights from the study about social media and environmental politics and social media research and their methodological approach. The book originated from the authors' paper presented at the International Environmental Communication Association Annual Conference in 2017 in the UK.