How do People Understand and Express “Smart City?” : Analysis of Transition in Smart-city Keywords through Semantic Network Analysis of SNS Big Data between 2011 and 2020

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to grasp the understanding of smart cities and to review whether the common perception of smart cities, as people understand it, is changing over time. This study analyzes keywords related to smart cities used in social network services (SNSs) in 2011, 2016, and 2020 respectively through semantic network analysis. Smart city discussions appearing on SNS in 2011 mainly focused on technology, and the results of 2016 were generally similar to those of 2011. We can also find policy or business-oriented characteristics in emerging countries in 2020. We highlight that all the results of 2011, 2016, and 2020 have some correlation with each other through QAP(Quadratic Assignment Procedure) correlation analysis, and among them, the correlation between 2011 and 2016 is analyzed the most. The results of the frequency analysis, centrality analysis, and CONCOR(CONvergence of interaction CORrelation) analysis support these results. The results of this study help establish policies that reflect the needs and opinions of citizens in planning smart cities by identifying trends and paradigm transitions expressed by people in SNS. Furthermore, it is expected to help emerging countries by enhancing the understanding of the essence and trend of smart cities and to contribute by suggesting the direction of more sustainable technology development in future smart city policies for leading countries.