When I was researching for disasters, I figured out that many disasters were exacerbated by a slow response. Hurricane Katrina is a prime example of delayed response from the government. Therefore we are eager to encourage authorities to respond to disasters as quickly as possible.
But one disaster has approached me in a different way. Personally, I had always resented to the plastic straw ban. To me, it was a weak solution to a much bigger problem, while simulatenously being a huge inconvenience to everyday people, and especially disabled people. All these thoughts were just for myself, however. After all, I am not particularly a climate activist and as a student I was inclined to ignore the situation altogether and focus on practical matters.
The negative sentiment towards plastic straws grew by the day and soon after many restaurant chains and policy makers began taking action against plastic straws. I was surprised by the speed of the response. I can recall it being about less than a year for all of this to happen. My opinion about plastic straws stayed the same, but people started to resent this change as well. I was not alone in the collective hatred towards the plastic straw ban. But then, I am only on the recieving side. I can also see a possibility that ultimately this will be the spark for even bigger changes.
In 2023, however, I was surprised to see a rather dark outcome. The media had started to go against the plastic straw ban, even after laws have been made. I have investigated the situation and found out that we have new scientific evidence and real life data to support the claim that plastic straws are not the problem. It seemed that public opinion was shifting. But policies have been made, laws enforced, and actions taken. I thought to myself "this itself is a disaster".
In terms of law and policy, there has to be an appropriate timespan to let the media and the public to respond to the situation. This is to ensure that the public is well informed and that the government is not making a hasty decision. However, in the case of the plastic straw ban, the response was too quick.
So I have come up with a theory I call "information propagation". It is a theory that describes the process of information being spread from one group of media to another. For example, twitter would be the fastest, reddit second, youtube third, and finally, the news and the government. I am not sure about the exact order, but I am firm in my belief that there is some sort of hierarchy.
While the plastic straw ban provided me with the initial motivation, it turns out that this is also a great topic due to the following qualities
- A known, acute starting point that is tracable (some months before July 2018, according to google trends)
- Global impact
- Well understood topic by the public
- Well documented on the internet
For this subject, I have decided to incorporate AI into my research. OpenAI has an accessible, affordable API called ChatGPT. It is a chatbot that can execute arbitrary commands. With the help of this tool, I should be able to analyze the sentiment of the media and the public towards the plastic straw ban in mass quantities (thousands)--something I wouldn't be able to manually do myself due to time constrants.
Using my programming skills, I decided to measure the sentiment of these media groups by time. From 2015 to end of 2023, in 6 month intervals, I have collected articles/comments/blogs written about plastic straws and plastic pollution. I have then fed these articles into ChatGPT and measured the sentiment of the response.
Using these responses, I am able to create some sort of wave data that represents the change of sentiment over time
The sentiment change over time in these media is what I call "sentiment waves". Like waves, they change in intensity over time and influence other parts. When treating them like waves, I can present the sentiment change in a mathematical/physical wave that allows me to analyze the situation in a quantitative manner.
I will also be able to visually represent the sentiment waves in a graph and confirm that the numbers are correct. These graphs will also provide intuitive insight of the situation.
After calculating the offset of these sentimental waves, I will be able to determine the appropriate timespan for law and policy makers to respond to a situation. For example, if the last offset was 5 years from initial shock, then the next law/policy should be made at least 5 years after.