Banca de DEFESA: CAROLINA NEVES SOUZA

THE CONTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL NETWORKS TO CONSERVATION: understanding digital interests and perceptions about Brazilian protected areas.

Engagement. Sentiment analysis. Twitter. Environmental monitoring. Digital data. Culturomics.

Protected areas (PAs) play a vital role in protecting natural and cultural heritage while supporting local livelihoods. However, despite this importance, in Brazil they face challenges linked to a lack of financial resources and the perceived low effectiveness of management, which can result in a lack of support from society for these areas. Given this scenario, it is necessary to better understand the public's perceptions and interests in Brazilian PAs. In this thesis, data from the social media Twitter (renamed X) was used to explore trends in interest and perceptions of protected areas in Brazil. To do this, in the first phase, tweets were collected in Portuguese about all categories of PAs from 2011 to 2020. Next, an innovative sentiment analysis methodology was applied, focussing specifically on Brazilian national parks (PARNAs) and extending the data collection period to 2022. The textual content of the tweets was analysed based on posting metrics and user engagement (likes and retweets), classification of the sentiments expressed in the text and topic modelling. The results indicate that the number of users/tweets posting about Brazilian PAs remained stable throughout the sample period, however, engagement grew considerably from 2018 onwards, coinciding with changes in the federal government. Although national parks received more mentions, especially related to tourism activities, tweets related to conflicts in PAs attracted more discussion. Sentiment analysis identified 18,388 (17. 30%) posts expressing negative sentiment towards PARNAs, with the majority related to the forest fires that occurred between 2011 and 2017 and the impact of government decisions affecting post-2019 conservation efforts. Six prominent discussion topics were identified: (1) Forest fires; (2) Security; (3) Regulations; (4) Wildlife killed by trampling; (5) Privatisation (Concessions); and, (6) Lack of financial resources, reflecting the variety of negative sentiments towards the parks. In addition, topic modelling by park proved beneficial in identifying different problems and conflicts in the five most tweeted PARNAs, thus facilitating targeted conservation actions. In this sense, the study highlights the importance of analysing social media data to understand public interest and promote more effective management of protected areas. This can subsidise conservation actions, improve the visitor experience and communicate the importance of PAs to society. Ultimately, the results emphasise the value of culturomics in identifying gaps and promoting improvements that achieve public support for Brazilian protected areas.