Highlighting smart city mirages in public perceptions: A Twitter sentiment analysis of four African smart city projects

Public Perceptions About Smart Cities: Governance and Quality-of-Life in Hong Kong

“…At the same time, some sentiments have been found ‘unjustifiably’ positive. Using Twitter data, as did Yigitcanlar et al ( 2022 ), Arku et al ( 2022 ) find evidence of public anticipation, trust, and joy—even as smart city projects had ‘underwhelming’ outputs. The authors label this phenomenon ‘smart city mirages.’ Finally, survey-based research shows that privacy is a commonly referenced public concern about smart cities (Bannerman & Orasch, 2020 ; van Heek et al, 2016 ; van Zoonen, 2016 ; van Zoonen et al, 2022 ; Virkki & Chen, 2013 ).…”

“…Relatedly, Cole et al ( 2023 ) describe how a policy narrative acquires meaning through policy communications that have originality, sincerity, and extension or relevance to the ‘outside world.’ These elements provide a useful template for government communications strategies regarding the benefits of smart cities. It is crucial, however, to avoid what Arku et al ( 2022 ) label ‘smart city mirages’—a phenomenon in which communication efforts draw attention only to benefits and away from policy challenges. The authors advocate for robust public access to quality information, a multi-dimensional media profile (e.g., websites and press releases), and clarity of message.…”

Development of a citizen participation public service innovation model based on smart governance

“…In the public service area, a smart governance model can increase citizen participation with contact-free encounters to co-create value, identify citizens’ needs, and also explore new solutions to existing issues. Also, it enables active engagement of the various stakeholders while minimizing exposure risks to the virus (Arku et al 2022 ). Furthermore, as the current generation citizens are quite familiar with digital devices, such as smartphones and wearable devices, their increasing participation is plausible for implementing the smart governance model.…”

“…Strategic communication efforts are needed to realize innovative initiatives in collaboration with citizens. Intelligent technologies should enable easy citizen participation that can benefit both citizens and the government (Arku et al 2022 ; Cole et al 2023 ). Specifically, for the effective implementation of smart government policies, the general public should have convenient access to high-quality information, multidimensional media profiles, and clear messages (Hartley 2023 ).…”

Exploring diverse interests of collaborators in smart cities: A topic analysis using LDA and BERT

“…Therefore, many studies have been conducted in the economic and policy fields that use Google trends data to understand people and society and predict behavior [ 70 ]. Regarding civil society in the study of smart cities, an emotional analysis using social network service data was performed to analyze public interest [ 73 ], and Kim et al identified public needs by analyzing civic query data for a city [ 2 ]. However, quantitative analysis using Google Trends has rarely been performed.…”