IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v175y2023ics0301421523000800.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The mega solar Twitter discourse in Japan: Engaged opponents and silent proponents

Author

Listed:
  • Doedt, Christian
  • Maruyama, Yasushi

Abstract

Social media is used by many for information gathering and sharing nowadays. Public opinion and risk perception are increasingly being shaped online. These online discourses provide valuable insight into the concerns and expectations of its users. This study analyzed more than 50,000 tweets to identify the attitude, locality, and concerns about large-scale solar photovoltaic, so-called mega solar, projects in Japan. The results show that the Twitter discourse is dominated by mega solar opponents who are especially concerned about the negative environmental impact of the projects, as well as the trustworthiness of politicians, developers, and experts. The concerns are not limited to specific local projects but mega solar is often generally dismissed as a suitable energy source in Japan. Twitter allows opinion leaders to reach a large audience with unvetted and biased negative information about mega solar. The lack of opinions that challenge these pre-existing group beliefs indicates the existence of an echo chamber. The currently silent supporters are advised to embrace social media to balance the one-sided discourse and build trust through transparency and engagement with concerned stakeholders.

Suggested Citation

  • Doedt, Christian & Maruyama, Yasushi, 2023. "The mega solar Twitter discourse in Japan: Engaged opponents and silent proponents," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:175:y:2023:i:c:s0301421523000800
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113495
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421523000800
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113495?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Borch, Kristian & Munk, Anders K. & Dahlgaard, Vibeke, 2020. "Mapping wind-power controversies on social media: Facebook as a powerful mobilizer of local resistance," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    2. Wustenhagen, Rolf & Wolsink, Maarten & Burer, Mary Jean, 2007. "Social acceptance of renewable energy innovation: An introduction to the concept," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2683-2691, May.
    3. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," NBER Working Papers 23089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. ., 2020. "Conclusion: building a culture of justice in the energy transition," Chapters, in: Energy Cultures, chapter 8, pages 145-159, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Abdar, Moloud & Basiri, Mohammad Ehsan & Yin, Junjun & Habibnezhad, Mahmoud & Chi, Guangqing & Nemati, Shahla & Asadi, Somayeh, 2020. "Energy choices in Alaska: Mining people's perception and attitudes from geotagged tweets," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    6. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-236, Spring.
    7. Gross, Catherine, 2007. "Community perspectives of wind energy in Australia: The application of a justice and community fairness framework to increase social acceptance," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2727-2736, May.
    8. ., 2020. "Justice and equity in the energy system," Chapters, in: Energy Cultures, chapter 7, pages 122-144, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Kathie M. d'I. Treen & Hywel T. P. Williams & Saffron J. O'Neill, 2020. "Online misinformation about climate change," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(5), September.
    10. Mariangela Vespa & Timo Kortsch & Jan Hildebrand & Petra Schweizer-Ries & Sara Alida Volkmer, 2022. "Not All Places Are Equal: Using Instagram to Understand Cognitions and Affect towards Renewable Energy Infrastructures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-19, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gritsenko, Daria, 2024. "Advancing UN digital cooperation: Lessons from environmental policy and governance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    2. Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos Molina, 2020. "Facebook Causes Protests," HiCN Working Papers 323, Households in Conflict Network.
    3. Dean Neu & Gregory D. Saxton & Abu S. Rahaman, 2022. "Social Accountability, Ethics, and the Occupy Wall Street Protests," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 17-31, September.
    4. Hogan, Jessica L. & Warren, Charles R. & Simpson, Michael & McCauley, Darren, 2022. "What makes local energy projects acceptable? Probing the connection between ownership structures and community acceptance," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    5. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.
    6. Henrik Skaug Sætra, 2021. "AI in Context and the Sustainable Development Goals: Factoring in the Unsustainability of the Sociotechnical System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-19, February.
    7. Fathey Mohammed & Nabil Hasan Al-Kumaim & Ahmed Ibrahim Alzahrani & Yousef Fazea, 2023. "The Impact of Social Media Shared Health Content on Protective Behavior against COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, January.
    8. Bartosz Wilczek, 2020. "Misinformation and herd behavior in media markets: A cross-national investigation of how tabloids’ attention to misinformation drives broadsheets’ attention to misinformation in political and business," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, November.
    9. Joël Cariolle & Yasmine Elkhateeb & Mathilde Maurel, 2022. "(Mis-)information technology: Internet use and perception of democracy in Africa," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 22010, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    10. Barrera, Oscar & Guriev, Sergei & Henry, Emeric & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2020. "Facts, alternative facts, and fact checking in times of post-truth politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    11. Sumeet Kumar & Binxuan Huang & Ramon Alfonso Villa Cox & Kathleen M. Carley, 2021. "An anatomical comparison of fake-news and trusted-news sharing pattern on Twitter," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 109-133, June.
    12. Zazli Lily Wisker & Robert Neil McKie, 2021. "The effect of fake news on anger and negative word-of-mouth: moderating roles of religiosity and conservatism," Journal of Marketing Analytics, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(2), pages 144-153, June.
    13. Roger D. Magarey & Christina M. Trexler, 2020. "Information: a missing component in understanding and mitigating social epidemics," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, December.
    14. Christoph March & Ina Schieferdecker, 2021. "Technological Sovereignty as Ability, Not Autarky," CESifo Working Paper Series 9139, CESifo.
    15. Russell, Aaron & Bingaman, Samantha & Garcia, Hannah-Marie, 2021. "Threading a moving needle: The spatial dimensions characterizing US offshore wind policy drivers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    16. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    17. Deena A. Isom & Hunter M. Boehme & Toniqua C. Mikell & Stephen Chicoine & Marion Renner, 2021. "Status Threat, Social Concerns, and Conservative Media: A Look at White America and the Alt-Right," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, July.
    18. Lohse, Johannes & McDonald, Rebecca, 2021. "Absolute groupishness and the demand for information," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242454, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Seth C. Lewis & Logan Molyneux, 2018. "A Decade of Research on Social Media and Journalism: Assumptions, Blind Spots, and a Way Forward," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(4), pages 11-23.
    20. Germano, Fabrizio & Sobbrio, Francesco, 2020. "Opinion dynamics via search engines (and other algorithmic gatekeepers)," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:175:y:2023:i:c:s0301421523000800. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.