Spatiotemporal Change-Points in Development Discourse: Insights from Social Media in Low-Resource Contexts

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how development discourse on social media in Zambia evolves over time and space, identifying key shifts linked to crises and projects, and introduces a mixed-methods approach for such analysis.

Contribution

It presents a novel mixed-methods pipeline combining topic modeling, change-point detection, and qualitative coding to study discourse dynamics in low-resource settings.

Findings

Discovered seven recurring themes in development discourse.

Linked discourse change-points to COVID-19 and geothermal projects.

Distinguished between ephemeral crises and persistent structural shifts.

Abstract

This study investigates the spatiotemporal evolution of development discourse in low-resource settings. Analyzing more than two years of geotagged X data from Zambia, we introduce a mixed-methods pipeline utilizing topic modeling, change-point detection, and qualitative coding to identify critical shifts in public debate. We identify seven recurring themes, including public health challenges and frustration with government policy, shaped by regional events and national interventions. Notably, we detect discourse changepoints linked to the COVID19 pandemic and a geothermal project, illustrating how online conversations mirror policy flashpoints. Our analysis distinguishes between the ephemeral nature of acute crises like COVID19 and the persistent, structural reorientations driven by long-term infrastructure projects. We conceptualize "durable discourse" as sustained narrative engagement with development issues. Contributing to HCI and ICTD, we examine technology's socioeconomic impact, providing practical implications and future work for direct local engagement.