Electrified: What Twitter Data Can Tell Us About Public Energy Discussions

Researchers and policy-makers interested in assessing public communication to better inform the decision-making process are increasingly utilizing data harvested from social media. Twitter is one of the largest online sources of near-instantaneous information about a myriad of topics socially relevant in the public sphere. Renewable energy (RE) is a socially relevant topic that has emerged in recent years as a critical and contentious public policy issue. Yet little is known about whether RE discussions are happening on Twitter and if so whether any of that information would be valuable to decision-makers or for the policy-making process. This research – as a proof of concept – indicates there are a multitude of substantive, public discussions about renewable- and other forms of energy occurring on Twitter. These discussions vary by energy-related topic (e.g., solar, wind, etc.) and through time. We conclude the energy-related Twitter discussions provide both challenges and opportunities for researchers and policy-makers, yet may be important for understanding the public discourse and how it shapes or is shaped by the agenda-setting process

Development of an implementation framework and social media analytics tool for Tanzania's tourism small and medium-sized enterprises

A Thesis Submitted in Patial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Information and Communication Science and Engineering of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyTourism is among the sectors that contribute greatly to the economic development of many countries. The industry contributes the growth of countries' economies and employment in 2019 it contributed 10.3% of the global gross domestic product and 330 million jobs. Majority of organisations in the tourism sector operate as small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Tourism SMEs prominently use ICT services including social media in their daily business activities. Performing social media analytics has the potential to bring maximum advantage to social media business users as it can provide insights of social media data for added business competitiveness. Tourism SMEs are conducting SMA in their business activities even though there is no framework to govern the process. There is a need for these tourism SMEs to have an implementation framework that governs the implementation and management of the SMA process. This study aims to develop a social media analytics implementation framework and a social media analytics tool for tourism SMEs in Tanzania. The study used questionnaires to survey tourism SMEs in the Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions to determine their social media analytics practices. The study found that majority of tourism SMEs 73% have not adopted the use of social media analytics tools and technologies. The 27% of SMEs that have adopted the use of social media analytics tools perform simple analytics using built-in tools from social media platforms, and don’t have guidelines or procedures to aid the implementation of social media analytics. The study is unique in that, it proposes a social media analytics implementation framework to assist tourism managers in implementing social media analytics in their social media platforms and the social media analytics tool. The framework was evaluated by tourism SMEs and the majority 86.66% agreed that it is appropriate for their usage. The study also introduces the social media analytics tool which will provide insight into the social media data of tourism SMEs. This research contributes knowledge and information about social media analytics to tourism SMEs managers and owners and provides the implementation framework and the social media analytics tool to tourism managers

A social media analytics framework for decision-making in citizen relationship management

Globally social media has shown unprecedented levels of adoption and Social Media Analytics (SMA) is a rapidly growing topic. For governments, SMA holds the promise of providing tools and frameworks to collect, monitor, analyse and visualise social media data, usually driven by specific requirements from a target application. However, social media data is noisy and unstructured, and organisations struggle to extract knowledge from this data, and convert it into actual intelligence. This study argues that SMA can support intelligent decision-making for Citizen Relationship Management (CzRM). CzRM is a growing effort of governments around the world to strive to respond rapidly to their citizens by fostering a closer relationship thereby creating more effective and efficient service delivery. However, there is a little evidence in literature on empirical studies of any existing decision-making framework for CzRM and SMA adoption. In particular, there is a gap with regards incorporating SMA into decision-making for CzRM of governments, particularly in developing countries like South Africa. The aim of this study was to develop a framework that provides guidelines, including methods and tools, incorporating SMA into decision-making for CzRM in the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) and the Free State Provincial Government (FSPG) of South Africa. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and conceptual analysis method was conducted to design the Social Media Analytics Framework for Decision-making in the context of CzRM (the SMAF). The findings from the literature review revealed several benefits and challenges with SMA, in particular the shortage of skills, guidelines, methods and tools for SMA. These challenges were used to draft guidelines that were included in the framework, which consists of five components that can be used to derive intelligent information from SMA. The pragmatic philosophy and a case study design was used to generate an in-depth, multifaceted understanding of the underlying problems in the case of the GPG and the FSPG. The German North-West Metropolitan region was used as a third case study to provide a more global perspective and a case of a developed country in terms of Gross Domestic Product. The scope of the study was limited to social media posts by provincial citizens related to CzRM and service delivery. Both formative and summative evaluations of the proposed theoretical framework were conducted. The formative evaluation was conducted v | Page as an Expert Review to receive feedback of the framework from the experts in the field of Computer Science and Information Systems. The findings validated the framework and some minor improvements were made based on the experts’ recommendations. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with participants from government managers and decision makers in the three cases were conducted. Case documents for the three cases were collected and reviewed. All collected data was analysed using the Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) method and common categories and themes were identified. Summative evaluations were conducted in the form of a Field Study, which consisted of an analysis of Twitter data from the three cases, and a closing FGD with Business Intelligence (BI) experts at the primary case of the e-Government department of the GPG. The findings revealed that SMA has been adopted in all three cases; however, while their strategies are comprehensive their implementations are very much in their early stages. The findings also highlighted the status of SMA in government and some potential gaps and areas for implementing the framework.Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Science, School of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics, 202