More Than Just an Audience: The New Approach to Public Engagement with Climate Change Communication on Chinese Knowledge-Sharing Networks

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social media platforms significantly disrupt traditional power dynamics within science communication, prompting both hopes of increased participation and visibility and fears that the authority of science may be eroded. Nowhere is this more visible than within climate change, where social media has provided scientists with new one-to-many communication channels, as well as opportunities for non-scientists to challenge mainstream opinions. Previous research has mainly explored these issues from a Western perspective, largely overlooking the contribution of non-English language social media to the construction of climate change as a global issue. In this article, we address this gap through exploring climate change discussion and communication on Zhihu, the leading Chinese question and answer platform. We consider who asks questions, what these questions are about, who answers these questions, and how they are answered. We find that non-scientists play an important role not only in asking questions, but also in answering them. Thus, Zhihu has the potential to host dialogic climate change communication between scientists and non-scientists.