DYSTENA:Explorative cases of sustainability and climate change discourse dynamics on social media combining text and network analyses

Explorative cases of sustainability and climate change discourse dynamics on social media combining text and network analyses

The DYSTENA project aims to contribute to the development of computational tools for the analysis of textual data and network data. It will combine recent advances in topic modeling and network analysis to track the dynamics of discourse in social media and determine how these dynamics affect the development of policy and norms. The project addresses the new challenges posed by recent developments in the production and dissemination of discourse and narratives that have shifted from mainstream media to social media. The new forms of communication require new tools for researchers to analyze and understand their role in the development of norms and policies.

Within the DYSTENA project, we will work on cases from the fields of organizational management and political science to analyze the mechanisms at work in online political or organizational communication and to develop methods for studying these mechanisms. We will focus on two independent cases
(1) how diplomats use their social media presence to interact with other diplomats and the public and use their online presence to influence climate negotiations, and
(2) how activists, individuals, and organizations use their social media presence to spread ideas and norms about sustainability that influence corporate behavior related to sustainability and climate issues.

DYSTENA is a cross-institutional and cross-thematic project involving four institutions and two CIVICA research priorities: "Data-driven technologies for the social sciences" and "Societies in transition, crises of earth". DYSTENA combines the efforts of experts in business and organizational studies, political science, political economy, and network and text analysis. The newly formed collaboration will increase the flow of expertise from more technical, data-driven experts to applied, real-world social science scenarios.

Project team:
Karl Wennberg, Stockholm School of Economics (PI)
Mickaël Buffart, Stockholm School of Economics
Carola Klöck, Sciences Po
Florian Weiler, Central European University
Ronald Burt, Bocconi University
Petra Kralj Novak, Central European University