Using Twitter to Explore (un)Healthy Housing: Learning from the #Characterbuildings Campaign in New Zealand

Abstract

While increasingly used for research, Twitter remains largely untapped as a source of data about housing. We explore the growth of social media and use of Twitter in health and social research, and question why housing researchers have avoided using Twitter to explore housing issues to date. We use the #characterbuildings campaign, initiated by an online media platform in New Zealand in 2014 to illustrate that Twitter can provide insights into housing as a public health and social problem. We find that Twitter users share details of problems with past and present homes on this public platform, and that this readily available data can contribute to the case for improving building quality as a means of promoting public health. Moreover, the way people responded to the request to share details about their housing experiences provides insight into how New Zealanders conceive of housing problems.

Understanding #WorldEnvironmentDay User Opinions in Twitter: A Topic-Based Sentiment Analysis Approach

“…When researchers aim to get information for governmental decision-making about a certain topic, one the means they use is to assess the opinion of individuals or users in social media [ 3 , 32 ].…”

“…Among social media, the one that most favors users’ sharing their opinions is Twitter [ 25 ]. With its 336 million active users, Twitter is increasingly useful for the extraction of factors from public opinion in social media [ 28 , 32 ]. This social network serves as an optimal starting point, since, unlike Facebook that offers limitations with private or semi-private profiles, Twitter facilitates open communication between users and allows them to share their opinions in a maximally accessible way publicly, main advantage with respect to other social networks that are private [ 33 ].…”

“…Thereafter, Twitter has become increasingly used for research purposes [ 25 ], including the studies on public opinion [ 30 ]. In addition, Twitter can be used by companies to identify the key factors about environment and public health that can help them improve their management and provide user insights as it is explained in the discussion section of this study [ 32 , 33 ]. Unlike other social media such as Facebook, the growth statistics of Twitter are positive, the number of its active users is growing every month based on Aggarwal [ 34 ].…”

Do Online Comments Affect Environmental Management? Identifying Factors Related to Environmental Management and Sustainability of Hotels

“…TripAdvisor is an American travel website founded in February 2000 [34]. This online platform allows users to share their travel experiences based on the principle that travelers can post reviews, comments, and ratings about a destination, hotel, or attraction and can add photos, videos, travel maps of their trips or participate in discussion forums [35].…”

Attitudes Expressed in Online Comments about Environmental Factors in the Tourism Sector: An Exploratory Study

“…Over the past few years, the use of new technologies has led to changes in the environmental, cultural, economic and social sustainability sectors from how they were at the beginning of the 21st century [ 1 , 2 ]. Tourism and the activities linked to its growth have become a key part of the world economy and have also made local populations suffer the consequences of the impact of these activities on the environment [ 3 ].…”