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From Sustainable Development Goals to Sustainable Cities: A Social Media Analysis for Policy-Making Decision

Author

Listed:
  • Amal Marzouki

    (Department of Organizational Information Systems, Faculty of Business Administration, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada)

  • Arbi Chouikh

    (Department of Organizational Information Systems, Faculty of Business Administration, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada)

  • Sehl Mellouli

    (Department of Organizational Information Systems, Faculty of Business Administration, Université Laval, Québec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada)

  • Rim Haddad

    (Higher School of Communications of Tunis, Université de Carthage, Ariana 2083, Tunisia)

Abstract

The United Nations (UN) adopted the seventeen “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) in early September 2015. One of these goals is SDG 11, which refers to the sustainable cities and communities. In this context, local governments face the challenge of aligning with this objective. As a result, they are increasing outreach to their organizational boundaries to involve citizens in policy making and strategy development, continually listening to citizens’ voices. One of the methods citizens use to express themselves is social media. This paper will emphasize social media platforms and specially Twitter to explore the public discourse about cities in the context of SDG 11. We applied descriptive quantitative and qualitative analysis to analyze the tweets that include terms and hashtags referring to the SDG 11. The data analysis process is composed of three major procedures: 1-Engagement analysis, 2-Trends based analysis and 3-Data Insights. Our results show that: 1-the COVID’19 pandemic negatively impacted users engagement towards SDG 11, 2-new technologies such AI and IoT are gaining more importance to help cities reach SDG 11, and 3-the SDGs are related and one SDG can impact other SDGs.

Suggested Citation

  • Amal Marzouki & Arbi Chouikh & Sehl Mellouli & Rim Haddad, 2021. "From Sustainable Development Goals to Sustainable Cities: A Social Media Analysis for Policy-Making Decision," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-21, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:15:p:8136-:d:598366
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    1. Soumya Balakrishnan & Suzanne Elayan & Martin Sykora & Marin Solter & Rob Feick & Christopher Hewitt & Yi Qiao Liu & Ketan Shankardass, 2023. "Sustainable Smart Cities—Social Media Platforms and Their Role in Community Neighborhood Resilience—A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(18), pages 1-22, September.

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