Huang Jing-Huei, Floyd Myron F, Tateosian Laura G, Aaron Hipp J
Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, North Carolina State University, United States.
Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, United States.
Landsc Urban Plan. 2022 Nov;227:104517. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2022.104517. Epub 2022 Jul 26.
Since school and business closures due to the evolving COVID-19 outbreak, urban parks have been a popular destination, offering spaces for daily fitness activities and an escape from the home environment. There is a need for evidence for parks and recreation departments and agencies to base decisions when adapting policies in response to the rapid change in demand and preferences during the pandemic. The application of social media data analytic techniques permits a qualitative and quantitative big-data approach to gain unobtrusive and prompt insights on how parks are valued. This study investigates how public values associated with NYC parks has shifted between pre- COVID (i.e., from March 2019 to February 2020) and post- COVID (i.e., from March 2020 to February 2021) through a social media microblogging platform -Twitter. A topic modeling technique for short text identified common traits of the changes in Twitter topics regarding impressions and values associated with the parks over two years. While the NYC lockdown resulted in much fewer social activities in parks, some parks continued to be valued for physical activity and nature contact during the pandemic. Concerns about people not keeping physical distance arose in parks where frequent human interactions and crowding seemed to cause a higher probability of the coronavirus transmission. This study demonstrates social media data could be used to capture park values and be specific per park. Results could inform park management during disruptions when use is altered and the needs of the public may be changing.
自因不断演变的新冠疫情爆发而导致学校和企业关闭以来，城市公园一直是热门去处，为日常健身活动提供场所，并让人逃离居家环境。公园与游憩部门及机构在应对疫情期间需求和偏好的迅速变化而调整政策时，需要有证据作为决策依据。社交媒体数据分析技术的应用允许采用定性和定量的大数据方法，以便对公园的价值获得不引人注目的及时洞察。本研究通过社交媒体微博平台——推特，调查了与纽约市公园相关的公众价值观在新冠疫情前（即2019年3月至2020年2月）和新冠疫情后（即2020年3月至2021年2月）之间是如何转变的。一种针对短文本的主题建模技术识别了两年来推特上有关公园印象和价值的话题变化的共同特征。虽然纽约市的封锁导致公园内的社交活动大幅减少，但在疫情期间，一些公园仍因体育活动和与自然接触而受到重视。在那些频繁的人际互动和拥挤似乎导致新冠病毒传播概率较高的公园，人们对未保持身体距离的担忧出现了。本研究表明，社交媒体数据可用于捕捉公园价值，且每个公园都有其特定价值。研究结果可为公园在使用情况改变且公众需求可能发生变化的干扰期间的管理提供参考。
