Presenting environmental data on social media: a set of guidelines for small screens and a case study

Abstract

Climate change and environmental sustainability are topics of great interest and the need for improving awareness about the related issues is urgent. The aim of this thesis is to determine if communicating environmental data on social media, taking advantage of the methodologies used in information visualization, can have a significant impact on the awareness of environmental sustainability. Despite the potential of social media for disseminating scientific knowledge, a proper communication methodology is required, both for distinguishing this communication from fake news and pseudo-science and for taking advantage of the point of strengths and weaknesses of small screens. This thesis contributes to this research area with an initial assessment focused on the relationships between data and social media as perceived by the young generations and then by proposing a set of guidelines for small screens that are applied and then evaluated in a case study related to the gathering of environmental data, among which carbon dioxide data, in the city of Venice. The thesis also includes an experimental activity that has provided real-world environmental data needed for testing the guidelines. A low-cost platform was designed and implemented for collecting these data that were then processed with different data visualization tools for being delivered through social media. A final user study was organized for understanding the impact in terms of engagement and knowledge improvements.