USC logo

How Public Transit Agencies Deal with All Your Angry, Mean, and Terrible Tweets

Published by Aubrey Hicks on

Citylab, from The Atlantic, took a look at a recent study by Bedrosian Faculty Affiliate Lisa Schweitzer. Her article, “Planning and Social Media: A Case Study of Public Transit and Stigma on Twitter,” published in the Journal of the American Planning Association won the journals best paper award for 2014.

You’re “slowly sucking our souls and our money one messed up day at a time,” they write. “Why must you be so bitchy?” You’re “a disgrce.” “:/ u suck!”

Such is the abuse leveled at public transit agency Twitter accounts every day—truly and unendingly negative. “Negative” is putting it kindly. According to a new study in the Journal of the American Planning Association, public transit receives more racist, classist, sexist, and altogether discriminatory tweets than other much-maligned public and private services, including social welfare programs, the IRS, and airlines (even United!).

Read the full article here.

Bedrosian Center