The Public Digital Debate and The Green Agenda

Abstract

This study analyzed publications on Facebook and Twitter regarding the environment by collecting approximately 12 million posts on these platforms between June and September, 2021. The analysis focused on a new dimension of the environmental debate, related to emergent topics of a new agenda regarding the subject: 1) technologies and the environment, 2) family farming, 3) water crisis and energy issues, 4) environmental fires and damage, and 4) government, public policies and the civil society. To that end, we employed a methodology of topic modeling in all the texts collected, seeking to make these topics emerge. Technologies and the environment had the highest number of publications among the five topics selected. However, all the topics shared the common characteristic of having a low level of polarization in the debate and dealing with transversal issues, such as discussions about indigenous populations, the water crisis and agricultural expansion.