Browsing by Author "Inoranta, Elli"

Social media has emerged as a mainstream communication channel alongside traditional media. Twitter in particular has risen to a significant social role, even though it is not the most popular social media. Twitter serves as an arena for discussion, where a diverse user base expresses its views on issues such as logging. The logging amounts are much discussed because of the carbon emissions and the disruption of biodiversity it causes. This study uses data collected from Twitter, where logging is mentioned, and trends are formed to show the public's opinions on logging. This study uses framing analysis to analyse the content, language, and perspective of the tweets to form frames that describe public opinions. The data set is 500 tweets collected between 1 January 2022 and 31 November 2022, which were collected manually using Twitter's built-in advanced search function to limit the data using the search terms #logging and logging, and by limiting the timeframe. The collected data is analysed using framing analysis, after which larger frames representing consistent trends are formed from the frames. In the analysis, the most common frames were found to be the neutral information sharing frame and the forest use criticism frame, which was contrary to expectations given Twitter's reputation as a platform for heated debate. The next most common frame was the frame of defending nature conservation. The results show that public opinion is a combination of neutral information sharing and condemnation of logging. The results may have been influenced by the keywords chosen to collect the data, which are negatively charged in themselves. Twitter has worked well as a platform for information sharing and discussion, on forests and other topics. The future of Twitter is currently uncertain. Changes made by its current owner have caused problems and many users and advertisers have fled the platform. In the future, it remains to be seen whether a social media replacement for Twitter will be found, or whether the platform will change for the better.