A Text Mining on the Circumstances that Trigger Interest Environmental Issues among the Public

Abstract

Abstract： The purpose of this paper is to examine the circumstances that triggered interest in environmental issues in the general public by undertaking a text mining analysis of the descriptive contents of free answers in a questionnaire survey. The results of correspondence analyses are as follows: the circumstances that triggered interest in environmental issues are (i) the Great East Japan Earthquake for the Kanto region residents, water quality of Lake Biwa and air pollution for the Kinki residents, and (ii) school education for young people, work or community activities for elderly, and children for parenting generation. (iii) Citizens who prefer the mass media as information sources, or suffer from anxiety about the future, have subjectively poor knowledge of environmental issues, while citizens who got interested through work, community activities, or school education, and citizens who have favorable feelings and values with regard to the environment, have subjectively rich knowledge of environmental issues.