The new town square: Twitter discourses about balconies during the 2020 lockdown in Spain
Metadatos
Afficher la notice complèteEditorial
Elsevier
Materia
Social Media Public Space Liminal spaces COVID-19 Natural language processing Topic modelling
Date
2023-12Referencia bibliográfica
Mesa-Pedrazas, Á., Nogueras-Zondag, R., & Duque-Calvache, R. (2023). The new town square: Twitter discourses about balconies during the 2020 lockdown in Spain. Cities, 143, 104595. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2023.104595]
Patrocinador
MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 PID2020.119569GA.I00; Junta de Andalucía MOVICRA (P20_00571); FEDER “Una manera de hacer Europa”Résumé
The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown in Spain during Spring 2020 resulted in a ban on most uses of public
space, producing a social redefinition of not only public spaces, but also private spaces such as homes. This paper
examines the discourses related to balconies that appeared at this time on Twitter (X), an intermediate microspace and hybrid between the public and private. The study uses data from tweets posted in Spain during the
strictest phase of the lockdown (from 15 March to 1 May 2020). Based on a descriptive analytical approach –
both quantitative and textual – the study applies text content analysis and natural language processing to identify
and analyse the main topics of conversation related to the use of balconies. The study brought to light two
primary and complementary results. Firstly, the balcony during the pandemic became a revitalized space in an
exceptional situation, partially adapting to the most common practices characteristic of public space and thus
reaffirming the importance of the existence of public spaces for citizen encounters. Secondly, the various uses of
balconies received different types of attention and generated stronger or weaker interactions on social networks,
demonstrating the complexity and diversity of relationships with public spaces.