Geography of Discourse about a European Natural Park: Insights from a Multilingual Analysis of Tweets

Abstract

Listening to what people discuss about natural landscapes is important, particularly for the management of protected areas where a range of uses are permitted with the potential for conflict. Increasingly social media platforms provide insights into such public discourses. Retrieving data from Twitter, we conducted a bilingual quantitative analysis of the content and sentiments in 2,060 tweets in Portuguese (67%), or English (29%) about Arrábida Natural Park, Portugal. Tweets were mostly positive (68%) and often talked about natural features (58%), park visitation (17%), activities and regional food (14%) and/or environmental issues (10%), with similar content in tweets from locals and other nationals, but some differences with international tweeters. Although with limitations, analyzing conversations on Twitter beyond just those in English can enhance park management by providing broader insights into who talks about what, when and in which language, their values and their perceptions of parks and their management.