Research News
The Ecosphere visualises the Twitter debate regarding the Rio+20 conference. Picture: Screenshot
Further information:
Livestreams & videos:
Official facebook page to Rio+20 Conference:
Official Twitter account to Rio+20 Conference:
UN-Website to "Future we want" initiative:
www.un.org/en/sustainablefuture
Vital Stats to the Rio+20 Conference:
http://blogs.un.org/blog/2012/06/22/rio20-wrap-up-vital-stats
Rio+Social on facebook:
www.facebook.com/rioplussocial
Wikicurve:
www.earthsummit2012.org/resources/wikicurve
CNN Ecosphere:
Ecosphere video:
Ecosphere on Twitter:
Rio+20 in the Social Media
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil took place from 20 to 22 June 2012. In the run-up and parallel to the conference, more than 45,000 visitors from all over the world were able to participate in hundreds of events. Many service provisions in the social media enabled also those, who were not able to attend the event in Rio, to follow the debates in the context of Rio+20 and to take part in the discussions.
The conference organisers offered various online opportunities for gathering information or participating in the discussion. The UN Webcast provided in the internet live broadcasts of press conferences, round tables and plenary sessions from the Rio conference. Even after the end of the conference, these can still be accessed by way of video on demand. Since April 2011, there is an official Facebook site for the UN conference with more than 26,000 fans by now as well as a Twitter profile with more than 22,000 followers. Under hashtags such as #rioplus20 or #rio20, Twitter users sent up to 1,500 tweets per day during the conference and thereby reached out to a community of some 6 million Twitter users.
The social media team of the United Nation blogs reports that more than 50 million people have participated in the online conversation on the "Future we want" initiative since its start in November 2011, using social media platforms. According to an evaluation by the UN team, more than a billion tweets with the hashtag #RioPlus20 have been sent in total within the English-speaking community on Twitter.
On 19 June, the symposium "Rio+Social" took place in Rio, a joint initiative of the UN and various partners. This symposium's ongoing objective is to publicly explore how social media and technology can play a pivotal role in creating sustainable solutions for the future of the planet. The Rio+Social Facebook page has more than 25,000 fans. On Twitter, everybody can take part in the discussion under hashtag #rioplussocial.
The UN uses also a tool called Wikicurve to present the global sustainability summit. It streams user opinions in real time and illustrates the degree to which certain events enter into the awareness of the users. Everybody can add events and evaluate these on a scale from one to ten. The degree of perception of certain issues and their movement in politics and public sentiment is mapped in a six-step sequence, from "Discovery" to "Mainstream Acceptance". So far, however, none of the four issues tracked - Action and Concern on Biodiversity, Action on Climate Change, The Green Economy and Sustainable Development Goals - have made it to mainstream acceptance.
The CNN Ecosphere visualises Twitter discussions in real time: Tweets with the hashtag #rio20 are summarised and attributed to specific topics. Each tweet stimulates the growth of individual plants. The degree and pace of growth depend on how the discussion develops. Similar tweets are grouped on branches to illustrate talks. A scrollable timeline maps the state of discussion since 1 June 2012.
Social media has the potential of reaching out to a large group of people, who have at their disposal devices for accessing the internet, and of encouraging them to take part in current debate. However, this excludes that part of mankind with no means of access to the internet. This is the majority of the world population. It would be inadequate to solely rely on the voluntary initiative of the civilian population and enterprises. Establishing the governmental framework conditions for more sustainability remains a task for politics.
