Twitter Sentiment Analysis of Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Climate Change

This study investigates the response of residents from different cultures to climate change and opinions about related activities on social media. The deep Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model is used for estimating sentiment polarity found in the social media posts. Cross-cultural polarity measurement using sentiment analysis refers to the use of sentiment analysis techniques to measure the emotional tone or sentiment of text in multiple languages or cultures. This can be used to compare and contrast the sentiments expressed in different cultures or to identify cultural-specific sentiment patterns. This research examines the sentiments of people living in Lahore, Pakistan and Christchurch, New Zealand related to climate change and possible actions. Both Lahore and Christchurch, located on opposite hemispheres, have diverse populations comprising a mix of different ethnic and religious groups. The analysis shows that the risk perceptions of people with regard to a global issue as climate change during the Covid-19 pandemic have created polarity in opinions posted on Twitter. The study finds that while the percentage of positive sentiments outweighs the negative ones in both countries, the negative sentiment values are still relatively high. Negative sentiments towards climate change can arise due to feelings of hopelessness, frustration, anger or despair in the face of overwhelming environmental challenges. This can lead to decreased motivation and engagement in actions to address climate change.