Does political affiliation impact transport policy debate?: Evidences from social media

Abstract

AbstractSocial networking sites (SNS) have played an important role in engaging citizens to various policy discussions and debates about government, society and environment. Though SNS platforms empower citizens to express their opinion on important topics, several concerns have been raised by researchers for using SNS as discussion platform for important political, government and environmental policies. SNS platforms may be manipulated by the dominant group and citizen might also display group behaviour on these platforms while expressing their opinions of digital platforms. This study analyses political affiliations’ influence on opinion and content shared by various stakeholders on Twitter. The context of odd‐even driving policy is undertaken using text mining and statistical research methods. This research suggests that political affiliation significantly affects type and characteristics of content shared by SNS users. This study will help policymakers and researchers in better understanding of citizens responses to environmental policies on SNS platforms.