The Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii; hereafter ‘tortoise’) is a federally threatened species facing a range of complex threats, including habitat loss and fragmentation, predation, climate change, and off-highway vehicle use. Some of these threats–and the management decisions intended to address them–can be polarizing.
To better understand how the public perceives the tortoise and how outreach efforts shape those perceptions, our team at CSP partnered with the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens to analyze online conversations about the species. Leveraging a rich dataset of social media posts (tweets) and online news articles, the team applied AI-based, natural language processing (NLP) techniques to evaluate both sentiment and dominant narratives surrounding the tortoise. Results from this analysis were presented during a CSP-led webinar on January 28th for tortoise researchers, managers, and outreach professionals.
During the webinar, CSP data scientist Mae Lacey and CSP scientist Madeline Standen walked attendees through findings on baseline public perception of tortoises online, the most prominent narratives appearing online, and how public sentiment shifts in response to outreach events. Overall, public perceptions of the tortoise were positive and the top three narratives appearing in tweets were (1) tortoise conservation, (2) emotional and personal connections to tortoises, and (3) renewable energy development. In articles, the dominant themes were (1) renewable energy development, (2) roads and habitat fragmentation, and (3) habitat use on military bases. For the weeks when outreach events were held, sentiment, user engagement, and user activity on Twitter were all higher than in weeks without outreach events. Online sentiment was positively associated with events held by small private businesses or non-profit organizations, as well events that included social media campaign elements.
Based on these findings, CSP identified several key insights to inform future tortoise outreach efforts:
- Timing matters: consider extending events into campaigns that follow at least a 3 week communication arc (promotional material in the week leading up, event reminders and live posts during the event week, and highlights/outcomes and next steps in the week after)
- Social media is a critical component of outreach: design events and their promotion with social media in mind by preparing and collecting “shareable” content
- The public appears to value trust, authenticity, and local relationships more than organizational scale: larger organizations should try to partner with smaller, local organizations for event outreach and organizations should use personal and relatable language framed on local relevance in their outreach
- News articles tend to shape emotional framing, while social media facilitates the spread and uptake of that emotion
CSP will also present this work at the Desert Tortoise Council Symposium on Friday, February 27 in Session 16: Outreach Events for Tortoise Conservation and Responses in the Social Media. The presentation is titled Investigating online sentiment toward the Mojave desert tortoise and outreach efficacy using natural language processing.