Climate Change Communication Research Articles

Communication Marketing Capability Through Social Media to Improve Awareness of Climate Change Mediated by Green Knowledge Sharing (A Case Study of Indonesian and Japanese Students)

This study proposes a model of social marketing communication through social media to improve awareness of climate change among Generation Z. The comparative analysis between two nationalities on climate change communication so far is under research. This comparative study discussed the issue of two countries’ Generation Z: Indonesia and Japan. We conducted this comparative study between Universitas Dian Nuswantoro and Universitas Katolik De La Salle in Indonesia and the Tokyo University of Technology in Japan; data were collected by distributing questionnaires from January to March 2020, right before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. This research has withdrawn respondents of 200 sophomore students representing Generation Z in both universities with the criteria of frequent engagement in social media to have environmental awareness. This study revealed that hypothesis 1, social media communication marketing capability has a significant impact on climate change awareness, hypothesis 2, that communication marketing capability has a significant effect on green knowledge sharing, and hypothesis 3, that green knowledge sharing has a significant impact on climate change awareness. The research findings revealed that green knowledge sharing was essential in bridging the gap between communication marketing capability and climate change awareness. Therefore, to effectively improve climate change understanding among Generation Z, our research suggests including green knowledge sharing through social media. Students of both countries grabbed green knowledge sharing, and people can consider this study that represented two countries to improve how to communicate climate change awareness among Generation Z.

AI Could Reshape Climate Communication

If we can overcome its pitfalls, AI holds promise for improving trust in climate science and activating a largely disengaged public, with meaningful consequences for health and well-being globally.

A Review of Relevant Literature on Climate Change Communication and Its Implications for Kenya

Climate change continues to threaten humanity's existence. Over time, efforts have been made to communicate climate change vagaries. Scholars put climate change communication at the center of successful mitigation and adaptation strategies. The objective of this paper is to review the literature on climate change communication. In this paper, the systematic literature review method was used to synthesize available research that has been conducted on the development, successes and challenges of climate change communication. Literature was generated through a digital search engine on available publications on climate change communication. This paper contributes to the existing literature by examining the perspectives of addressing climate change communication to the different segments of the audiences. It provides insights on the development of climate change concerns both globally and, more specifically, the concerns in the Global South, which grapple with many other socio-economic challenges which are exacerbated by the climate change adversities on the livelihood of the populace. The literature also unpacks the successes and challenges which communicators may leverage to influence behavior change that supports climate change action. The paper situates the relevant literature and its implications for Kenya.

How academic research and news media cover climate change: a case study from Chile

IntroductionClimate change has significant impacts on society, including the environment, economy, and human health. To effectively address this issue, it is crucial for both research and news media coverage to align their efforts and present accurate and comprehensive information to the public. In this study, we use a combination of text-mining and web-scrapping methods, as well as topic-modeling techniques, to examine the similarities, discrepancies, and gaps in the coverage of climate change in academic and general-interest publications in Chile.MethodsWe analyzed 1,261 academic articles published in the Web of Science and Scopus databases and 5,024 news articles from eight Chilean electronic platforms, spanning the period from 2012 to 2022.ResultsThe findings of our investigation highlight three key outcomes. Firstly, the number of articles on climate change has increased substantially over the past decade, reflecting a growing interest and urgency surrounding the issue. Secondly, while both news media and academic research cover similar themes, such as climate change indicators, climate change impacts, and mitigation and adaptation strategies, the news media provides a wider variety of themes, including climate change and society and climate politics, which are not as commonly explored in academic research. Thirdly, academic research offers in-depth insights into the ecological consequences of global warming on coastal ecosystems and their inhabitants. In contrast, the news media tends to prioritize the tangible and direct impacts, particularly on agriculture and urban health.DiscussionBy integrating academic and media sources into our study, we shed light on their complementary nature, facilitating a more comprehensive communication and understanding of climate change. This analysis serves to bridge the communication gap that commonly, exists between scientific research and news media coverage. By incorporating rigorous analysis of scientific research with the wider reach of the news media, we enable a more informed and engaged public conversation on climate change.

How people update their beliefs about climate change: An experimental investigation of the optimistic update bias and how to reduce it

AbstractPeople usually update their beliefs selectively in response to good news and disregard bad news. Here, we investigated in two preregistered experiments (N = 278 and N = 306) (1) whether such valence‐dependent belief updating also underlies information processing in the context of climate change and (2) whether it can be altered by interventions informing about different aspects of climate change. To this end, we adapted a well‐established belief update task to the context of climate change. In multiple trials, participants were asked about their beliefs about adverse consequences of climate change; subsequently, they were asked to update their beliefs in light of new information. Both studies provided evidence against the hypothesis that people integrate good news about climate change more than bad news. After half of the trials, participants were randomized to one of four video‐based interventions, each of which aimed at promoting a more accurate risk perception and increasing pro‐environmental intentions. After the interventions, participants showed a more accurate risk perception, and women rather than men increased their intentions for pro‐environmental behavior. The results provide implications for climate change communication, as they show that when facing the consequences of climate change, people adjust their risk perception accurately and increase their pro‐environmental intentions.

Does the climate change communication power behave consistently before and after the “dual carbon” target is put forward? Spatial-temporal differences based on Weibo

Climate change communication power is an important variable to characterize the influence of climate change information. To deeply understand the public's climate change communication power in China under the “dual carbon” context, this study selected Weibo as the source for obtaining climate change texts and analyzed the spatial-temporal differences of climate change communication power by using a web crawler and a communication power model. Through the comparative analysis of the two periods before and after the “dual carbon” goal was put forward, it is found that: (1) After the “dual carbon” goal was put forward, the public's discussion on climate change was more widely distributed, which formed a concerned circle of climate change in coastal areas, but the extensive discussion on climate change did not mean the enhancement of climate change communication. (2) Celebrities play an important role in the communication of climate change, but users with strong communication power for climate change do not mean that the amount of forwarding must be high. (3) The communication power of climate change is generally in a state of fluctuation, and economically developed areas have stronger communication power. (4) Keywords such as “carbon footprint” and “green technology” are the most powerful in the situation after the “dual carbon” goal was put forward. Based on the comparative analysis, the study grasps the role orientation and division of labor as a whole, which will provide a basis for formulating regional climate change-related policies more pertinently. The introduction of z-index into the study of climate change transmission in Weibo is an innovation in the application scenario of z-index.

IKLIM KOMUNIKASI PT KAI (PERSERO) DAOP 8 SURABAYA DALAM MENINGKATKAN PRODUKTIVITAS KARYAWAN MELALUI KEGIATAN EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

In every company basically requires good communication in an effort to achieve the goals to be achieved. Thus, to support smooth communication within the company, it is also necessary to be supported by a good organizational communication climate. The organizational communication climate also occurs at PT KAI (Persero) Daop 8 Surabaya. Organizational communication climate, with its existence, is so important in influencing the way of life of its members so that it has an influence on the productivity of its performance. This study aims to analyze the communication climate at PT KAI (Persero) Daop 8 Surabaya in increasing employee productivity through employee relations activities and to analyze the obstacles that occur in the communication climate. The research method used by researchers is a descriptive quantitative research method, by analyzing the communication climate at PT KAI (Persero) Daop 8 Surabaya. Based on the results of a crosstab analysis of 6 indicators of organizational communication climate according to Faules and Pace including, trust, shared decisions, honesty, listening in upward communication, openness in downward communication, and attention to high-performance goals, the average results are obtained for each indicator that the organizational communication climate on PT KAI Daop 8 Surabaya employee productivity is fairly good, namely 4.02 which indicates that the communication climate at PT. KAI (Persero) Daop 8 Surabaya is running quite well.
 Keywords : Communication Climate, Employee Relations, Productivity

Supporting youth emotionally when communicating about climate change: A self-determination theory approach

Communicating with adolescents about climate change can be challenging if we want to safeguard their emotional well-being. Here, we evaluate the emotional impact of climate change communication that is informed by self-determination theory (SDT). We conducted two experiments with samples of ethnically diverse adolescents from the United States to examine adolescents’ emotions when reading needs-aligned, needs-misaligned, and needs-neutral (control) communication about climate change. Adolescents who read needs-aligned communication reported less anxiety compared with adolescents who read needs-misaligned (Study 1) and needs-neutral (Study 2) communication. Unexpectedly, compared with adolescents who read needs-neutral communication, adolescents who read needs-misaligned communication reported more positive emotions (i.e., enjoyment, pride) when learning about climate change (Study 2). Our research provides initial evidence that SDT can inform climate change communication strategies that buffer adolescents from experiencing anxiety.

Listening for the local: Australian community radio and climate change communication

Climate change is most acutely experienced at the local level so conversations and action must be locally relevant. Australia's community radio sector is uniquely positioned – both as hyperlocal media and a platform for diverse voices – to facilitate these conversations. Drawing on research conducted with 12 community radio stations, this article enlists Dreher and de Souza’s idea of community radio as community ‘listening posts’: spaces for communities to engage with external groups as well as those within. Community radio stations present opportunities for political leaders and policymakers to access community sentiment and experiences of climate change. The role of listening in community radio also speaks to the relationships between communicative justice and climate justice – the politics of who speaks and who is heard. The findings suggest that the Australian sector and its global contemporaries could embrace the role of listening with community radio to support community resilience to climate change.

Emotions: functions and significance for attitudes, behaviour, and communication

Abstract Emotions are regularly cited as vital components of effective strategic communication. However, there is relatively little guidance about how emotions should be used. Eliciting emotions is key to persuasion because attitudes have a cognitive and emotive component, with predictable physiological outcomes that make messages more resonant and impactful on behaviour, supporting policy objectives. This article shows that communicators—in the field of migration and beyond—should choose their campaign’s emotional frame according to their desired physiological and behavioural reaction. This article applies the emotion schema of Plutchik to offer 32 separate emotions and their theorised physiological reactions, examples of stimuli, and behavioural societal effects. Furthermore, emotional outcomes can be altered via narratives, frames, personal-based messages, facial expressions and body language, aesthetics, ordering (‘emotional flow’), intensities, and combinations. Finally, the limits of emotion-based communication—not least the ‘appeal to emotion’ logical fallacy—and how to overcome those limits—grounding emotion-based communication in facts, values, identities, and efficacy—are considered. Emotion-based communication in the field of migration, although widely used, is largely untested so communicators should test different approaches but also can take lessons from fields such as corporate, health, and climate change communication.

Economics, health, or environment: What motivates individual climate action?

Climate change is a major threat to human health, however the role of health in climate change communication is understudied. The goal of this study was to understand how to support individuals’ adoption of climate related mitigation and adaptation activities. We hypothesized the primary motivation for engaging in pro-environmental activities would be unequally distributed across health, economics, or environment motivations. We also hypothesized respondents who felt greater susceptibility and those with higher perceived self-efficacy would adopt more pro-environmental behaviors. In 2020, we conducted a cross-sectional study using Amazon’s MTurk platform. Among the respondents, the most commonly reported activity was alternatives to private vehicles (30% already engaging), while more than two thirds of respondents reported wanting to install solar panels (70.1%) and converting to a high efficiency vehicle (63.2%). Depending on the action, respondents’ reported motivation varied. Economics was common to those who used public transportation and who installed solar paneling; purchasing a high efficiency vehicle was split between environment and economic reasons. Health was the primary motivation for converting to a plant-based diet. The perceived immediacy of climate change impacts was associated with adoption of pro-climate activities as were beliefs around human capacity to mitigate climate change. Despite the growing literature supporting health as a motivation for climate action, economic motivation was more commonly selected among the activities we evaluated. These results could aid the development of more efficient evidence-based communication strategies that would reach various audiences in society.

THE DISSEMINATION OF NEWS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE: AN ANALYSIS OF THE BRAZILIAN SCENARIO IN THE LAST 50 YEARS

The understanding of scientific topics by society is considered complex and the different media play an important role when trying to transmit information. This study sought to contextualize how the communication of climate change occurred, considering the last 50 years and highlighting the Brazilian scenario, through an integrative literature review. Sixty-three articles were used, from which it became evident that the transmission of news by the media has always presented problems at different scales, having strong political influence and inclinations to the economic moment. The results also showed the high level of disinformation and misinformation, especially in digital media, worldwide. In Brazil, television remains the most used media, but in which little attention is perceived to scientific matters. Finally, the present research brings as a novelty to the state of the art, the indication of important questions to be answered and complemented in this area of study, such as the possibility of works to understand the public's relationship with the various media, with regard to the consumption, interpretation and appropriation of news.

An examination of digital empathy: When farmers speak for the climate through TikTok

Food production contributes to and is affected by climate change. With this dual-sided nature of food production, separate from policymakers, the media, scientists, and activists, how climate dialogue engagement occurs when farmers speak about climate is the interest of this research. Due to the important role of youth in climate activism, we analyze climate dialogue engagement on the youthful platform of TikTok during the most recent United Nations COP26 meeting, when climate dialogues peaked globally in the media. This study includes a two-step analyses: Step-I involved a post-focused analysis investigating digital empathy surrounding TikTok posts created by farmers. Step-II was a user-focused analysis exploring TikTok farmers’ perspectives on the public engagement with their climate-farming related posts. The results suggest that the typical empathic engagement of the analyzed climate dialogue is emotional reactions (expressed briefly or explicitly). Even though the analyzed videos contain alternative ways of communication (dynamic demonstrations, humor), cognitive empathy can differ based on the narrative and narrator. These findings contribute to studies investigating the outcome of climate communication among communities that share specific interests, elaborating on the role of alternative ways of communication in climate dialogues, and exploring how digital empathy serves to break down self-silencing among farmers and the online communities that they reach out to.

Climate change communication in India: A study on climate change imageries on Instagram

The rising accessibility of mobile phones and the proliferation of social media have revolutionized the way climate change has been communicated. Yet, the inherent invisibility and temporal complexities of climate change pose challenges when trying to communicate it on visual media platforms. This study employs visual content analysis to investigate how environmental non-government organizations (NGOs) in India address these limitations on their Instagram pages. Four environmental NGOs based in India were selected, and their thirty most recent Instagram posts related to climate change were analyzed based on imagery type, subject, context and themes. The findings revealed that these NGOs employed a diverse range of climate change imageries, often accompanied by overlaying texts, to traverse the lack of standardized visual tropes. Moreover, it is noted that a significant majority of analyzed Instagram imageries following the visual principles advocated by Climate Outreach emerged from one single NGO account, suggesting potential variations in the visual communication strategies among different NGOs.

Applied semantics and climate communication

AbstractThis paper explores ways in which applied semantics (coming out of Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach) can inform effective communicative strategies for action on climate change. After framing discussion, it presents three case studies, which are intentionally disparate in nature: contrastive semantics of the expressions ‘climate crisis’, ‘climate emergency’, and ‘climate catastrophe’; a semantically-enhanced examination of how public inquiries into extreme weather events help shape climate discourse in Australia; the semantics of ‘the economy’ in everyday English and the implications for climate change discourse. We argue that climate action communication is clearer, more resonant, and more effective when it uses or builds on ordinary words and local meanings.

Effectiveness of audience segmentation in instructional risk communication: A systematic literature review

Instructional risk communication, with messages usually delivered in forms of general education campaigns, is not always effective. One of the reasons is that very often messages are not tailored for specific needs and demands of recipients. Audience segmentation can prove to be useful.This paper presents a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed articles related to the effectiveness of application of audience segmentation to disaster education. The objective of this review is to highlight the effectiveness of audience segmentation as a concept within instructional risk communication and to provide specific instructions to managers that would benefit from applying this concept.We identified 1493 papers published before April 2023 using systematic and hand-searching and we identified 15 articles for in-depth review that matched our inclusion criteria.We extracted data on segments investigated, factors analysed, effectiveness analysis and related theoretical frameworks.The results of this systematic literature review confirm the importance of tailoring contents of instructional risk communication to the needs of heterogeneous audiences through target messages. In the presentation of the findings of this systematic literature review, several important themes emerged, such as the importance of community engagement, the main characteristics of the segments, the necessity to involve vulnerable groups and the role of social media.This review shows that audience segmentation can prove effective not only in health and climate communication, but also in crisis communication. Most of the results taken from the selected articles underline the need for crisis managers and practitioners to further explore the use of audience segmentation.

Pola Komunikasi Tata Niaga Tembakau (Studi Kasus Grader Tembakau dan Petani Tembakau di Kecamatan Parakan)

In the process of tobacco trading, the factory has a representative who is trusted to buy and accommodate the tobacco harvest. Factory representatives are known as graders whose job is to determine the price of tobacco based on the tobacco yield figures offered by farmers to factories. This study aims to look at communication patterns in the tobacco trading process system involving graders where this has weaknesses, namely allegations of malfeasance in graders that are trusted by factories as a sale and purchase agreement that is not stated in writing between farmers and graders so that graders can freely drop the prices. This research uses a qualitative descriptive method with a case study approach in Parakan District, Central Java. The results show that the pattern of primary communication between graders and farmers has weaknesses, namely being constrained by the distance and the activity of the graders. Furthermore, for secondary communication patterns, there are media that link messages between graders and farmers, linear communication patterns that are one-way and tend to be detrimental and circular communication patterns that are able to minimize crop failure and create a good communication climate.

Innocent heroes or self‐absorbed alarmists? A thematic review of the variety and effects of storylines about young people in climate change discourses

AbstractDiscourses about young people are interacting with climate change discourses in ways that often marginalize the young in social responses to climate change. The resulting stories about young people in a changing climate build upon long‐standing representations of youthhood in late modern societies as a liminal, ill‐defined state between childhood and adulthood. The social and behavioral sciences have both helped produce these stories and critically examined their origins, characteristics, and effects. This article offers a novel critical review of ideas about young people in climate change research across a wide variety of disciplines and fields, including geography, psychology, sociology, education, political studies, health studies, media studies, legal studies, and youth studies. We employ Hajer's account of discursive storylines to identify seven ways in which young people are storied in climate discourses. While distinct, stories of young people as innocent, vulnerable, heroic, alarmist, inheriting, apathetic or narcissistic overlap, and interact. This variety of storylines reflects the mutable category of young people and the deliberate ambiguity with which it is often deployed. We use this typology in three ways to advance the interests of young people in climate change discourses. First, we show how these discourses are indebted to while also changing understandings of young people in late modern societies. Second, we consider the potential impacts of these stories on young lives and on responses to climate change. Third, we identify prospects for new stories to emerge as young voices become increasingly important in urgent social discussions of climate change.This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Perceptions of Climate Change

Forty years of climate risk research in Zimbabwe – 1980–2021

ABSTRACT Identifying sound strategies to manage climate risks requires understanding complex systems, characterised by; a large number of potential factors that interact; multiple stakeholder constituencies with diverse values, deep and dynamic uncertainties. This paper assesses the general understanding and dominant narrative regarding climate change in particular societies in order to track the trends regarding the management of climate risk. In this regard, this paper considers climate risk from a Zimbabwean perspective between 1980 and 2021. The assessment of climate risk in Zimbabwe took cognisance of the fact that climate change is a subject that has received a considerable amount of attention in Zimbabwean focused literature. As such, secondary data were used to understand the dominant narratives regarding climate risk in Zimbabwe. The climate risk discussion in Zimbabwe has significantly grown over past four decades nonetheless, it is evident that the dominant narrative is biased towards climate change adaptation particularly on aspects of agricultural and livelihoods sensitivity from a water scarcity perspective. Other adaptation components such as the exposure to hazards, indigenous knowledge systems, ecological and infrastructure vulnerability, communication and gender dimensions of climate change also form the bulk of issues that dominate the adaptation centred narrative.

Hyper, Broken, and Artificial: How (Not) to Communicate about Climate Change

This rhizomatic essay maps the communicative-geographical dimensions of our current cultural moment in relation to climate change communication, which characterizes climate as hyper and broken, proposing the artificial as the fix to this brokenness. Drawing on more-than-human sensibilities of communication geography, I work through three intricately connected modalities of current cultural discourses in relation to climate. First, hyper allows me to locate an implosion of scale in the context of the hyperobject of climate change. Second, broken asks questions about the dialectical tension between whole-ness and broken-ness, a longing for a nostalgic past and an urgent futurity. And finally, artificial engages the seeming solution to this broken-ness as it lures on the horizon of our perception: I argue that our flight into the realms of techno-solutionism do not absolve us from being concerned with the current planetary moment as the artificial is very much grounded in the material.