Rowan researcher: Twitter helped shape discourse, outcome of proposed offshore wind projects

Leading up to November 2023, when Danish offshore wind energy (OWE) firm Orsted decided to pull out of two major projects off New Jersey’s coast, there was broad statewide support for the initiatives.

But popular support for the projects, which had been as high as 80 percent among New Jersey residents in 2019, eroded in the intervening years, and a change in sentiment likely driven by social media contributed to Orsted’s decision to back out, a Rowan University researcher has found.

Dr. Alison Novak, an associate professor in the Department of Public Relations and Advertising within the Ric Edelman College of Communication & Creative Arts, believes the change in public support, which she said is now about 50 percent among all New Jersey residents and as low as 40 percent along the coast, was directly affected by X (formerly Twitter), and the ability for its users to interact with others around the world.

Writing in the journal Qualitative Research Reports in Communication last month, Novak found that the platform’s nature, which connects users through simple hashtags, enabled New Jerseyans to adopt a “globalization lens” in which they could study OWE projects elsewhere and compare them to those that were projected off the East Coast.

Based on an analysis of nearly 5,000 tweets, Novak found that many New Jersey X users became disheartened by various narratives, including that OWE companies overpromise and underdeliver in the construction of offshore windfarms, and that conservative positions often pushed by beachfront homeowners swayed public opinion against the projects.

“Users go online to negotiate the value of the proposed projects,” Novak said. “They want to know not just how this will impact my life but my children’s lives.”

Novak said conservative arguments related to the construction of wind farms, in particular that vessels used to scout locations and build towers, painted a false narrative that whales would be killed. Though the narrative was untrue, Novak said, it took hold.

Concerns about how the windmills will look, that they will negatively affect the aesthetics of the shore, were also distorted by conversations on Twitter, as were concerns about noise and how much the wind farms would ultimately reduce residents’ bills.

All of which weakened arguments for the projects, in particular how green energy initiatives like wind offset the use of planet warming fossil fuels and that green energy projects produce good paying, long term jobs, Novak said.

The results of her study, conducted between 2020 and 2022, appeared in the article “Global discourses of protest and support of offshore wind energy,” April 17.

“I think the anti-wind group became a lot more active and better funded since 2020 (and that affected public opinion),” Novak said.

Novak, an expert on political strategic communication, digital media policy and digital activism, said in addition to aesthetics, noise and concern for marine life, opposition to the projects played upon homeowner fears that the windfarms could result in falling values for beachfront properties.

“It’s about a loss of agency, that the government, and international corporations like Orsted, were taking something away,” she said. “It’s a classic American discourse that draws on a very conservative talking point that goes back to the Revolution.”

Novak said that while Orsted reps were somewhat elusive about why the company decided to pull out, experts widely believe that concern about future state politics played a role. The current government, led by Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, supports offshore wind energy, but future administrations, particularly those led Republicans, may not, she said.

Though Orsted pulled out of its plans for wind farms off New Jersey, two other companies now seek to build OWE projects and won approval for them from the state Board of Public Utilities in January.

Novak said her research focused on the communication aspect of the projects and is neutral regarding their outcome.

“There’s something really important about Twitter being a space where people are learning about science,” she said. “I’m interested in this because of what it tells us about public opinion.”