Making sense of media emotions around traffic reduction schemes: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and School Streets in news and social media

This thesis provides an understanding of online media’s reception of urban traffic reduction schemes, examining a gap in the literature regarding the emotive media coverage and public social media discourse surrounding Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) and School Streets in the UK. Moving beyond simple sentiment analysis, the primary aim was to utilise discursive emotion as an analytical entry point to understand how emotional narratives were constructed within the context of underlying media logics, negativity bias, and societal structures. The research employed a mixed-methods design, leading with a Qualitative Content Analysis of local news articles and supplemented with an exploratory text mining study of Twitter data from 2018 to 2022. The findings reveal that news coverage adhered to predictable media logic, exhibiting a clear negativity bias and framing the schemes through a conflict lens. This emotional framing was highly tailored. LTNs were associated with an anticipatory anger discourse linked to threats against automobility, while School Streets narratives were framed through a culturally resonant fear for child safety. To provide a different context, social media discourse on Twitter was not consistently negative but was instead emotionally polarised. Notably, the online emotional conversation around School Streets was predominantly positive. This thesis concludes that the emotional landscapes surrounding these transport schemes are not unique but are predictable products of distinct media and platform logics. News media use emotion as a discursive device to package status quo disruption into engaging, commercially viable narratives, while social media represents a more contested emotional sphere of expression, one with the potential for platform manipulation. The original contribution of this research is a framework that situates transport debates within critical media theory, demonstrating how analysing emotional expression reveals more profound insights into the structures of power and ideology that may shape the public perception of reallocating road space.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Ph.D.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

PhD thesis

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Westminster

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Macgowan, Athena

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Aldred, R.
• Verdegem, P.
• Cohen, T.

Identifier

oai:westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk:x64yw

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk:x64yw