This study investigates how Bangladeshi Islamic preachers interpreted the 2025 Southern California wildfires in YouTube sermons to understand how climate events are re-framed through religious and geopolitical discourses in the Global South. It employs the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) within Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine how meaning is constructed transnationally around the wildfires. The findings show that preachers did not frame the event as a natural disaster but framed it as divine punishment visited upon the United States for perceived Western immorality and its foreign policy, particularly its support for Israel's war in Gaza. The preachers combined theological reasoning, political grievance, and cultural critique in their interpretation of a climate event using emotionally charged narratives. In doing so, they reject the dominant techno-scientific explanation of climate events. The paper argues that religious sermons in the Global South context function as sites of environmental meaning-making, and thus a "totalizing narrative" is constructed, where environmental phenomena are interpreted through the lens of broader moral and geopolitical frameworks. The study contributes to environmental communication by showing how religious actors in the Global South reframe climate events in their preaching and how affective and politicized climate discourse circulate transnationally.
Climate scientists are increasingly drawn into a polarized public sphere, challenging relations between science and society. In this study, we interviewed thirty-five climate scientists - diverse in discipline and seniority - working in the Netherlands about their perceptions of, and experiences with public engagement. Based on our empirical material, we construct an analytical framework with a politization and participation axis on which we position their statements. Demarcating their public activities along these dimensions, climate scientists highlight concerns for scientific credibility, political efficacy, normative responsibility and individual capacity. While there is a clear opposition between those compelled to advocate for stringent climate policies or tackle misinformation and those who believe their main role is to provide solid knowledge and leave the normative choices to activists or politicians, only few scientists collaborate with stakeholders. Letting different stakeholders speak and participate in knowledge productions, we argue, may provide a solution to the science vs politics stranglehold.
We report results from two survey experiments testing how frames in communication shape public views about the causes of urban wildfires in the United States. Respondents in a nationally representative sample (N = 2,155) and a targeted sample of California residents (N = 1,201) were randomly assigned to messages attributing recent wildfire damage to climate change, government mismanagement, both, or no cause. Exposure to the frames strongly influenced attributions of responsibility: government-mismanagement messages were especially persuasive, and climate-change messages polarized Democrats and Republicans. However, frames had limited effects on support for climate and urban wildfire mitigation policies. Californians, who had greater local exposure to the impacts of the 2025 southern California wildfire, were generally less responsive to the frames than respondents nationwide. The findings highlight how partisan identity constrains the ability of communication to redirect blame for climate-related hazards. It clarifies how communication strategies influence public understanding of hazard causation and reveals the limits of framing in politically polarized contexts.
O artigo discute como a educomunica & ccedil;& atilde;o socioambiental tem se consolidado no Brasil como pr & aacute;tica e epistemologia latino-americana que afirma a comunica & ccedil;& atilde;o como direito humano e como instrumento de resist & ecirc;ncia & agrave; mercantiliza & ccedil;& atilde;o de vidas e territ & oacute;rios. A partir de fundamentos freirianos, das media & ccedil;& otilde;es de Mart & iacute;n-Barbero e da pedagogia comunicativa de Kapl & uacute;n, mostra-se que a educomunica & ccedil;& atilde;o fortalece pr & aacute;ticas dial & oacute;gicas, cr & iacute;ticas e coletivas. Com base em 203 iniciativas mapeadas pelo projeto Educom&Clima, o texto evidencia como organiza & ccedil;& otilde;es da sociedade civil, escolas e movimentos sociais mobilizam estrat & eacute;gias educomunicativas para enfrentar a emerg & ecirc;ncia clim & aacute;tica, embora temas como justi & ccedil;a clim & aacute;tica e racismo ambiental ainda sejam menos abordados. E os dados da pesquisa "A Guerra de Oi & aacute;: Comunica & ccedil;& atilde;o, Mulheres e Transi & ccedil;& atilde;o Energ & eacute;tica" revelam resist & ecirc;ncias de mulheres sertanejas, destacando pr & aacute;ticas educomunicativas que denunciam os impactos do neocolonialismo verde na transi & ccedil;& atilde;o energ & eacute;tica e anunciam o valor dos saberes ancestrais que sustentam os territ & oacute;rios amea & ccedil;ados.
Climate change has become a critical issue in global environmental communication, requiring states to balance international expectations with domestic priorities. While previous research has explored frames such as uncertainty, economic costs, security, morality, and health, less attention has been paid to how non-Western media strategically differentiate framing practices across linguistic and audience contexts. This study analyzes China Daily's bilingual coverage of climate change (2008-2024) to examine how a media outlet constructs differentiated discourses for international and domestic audiences. Employing the Analysis of Topic Model Networks (ANTMN) approach combined with qualitative discourse analysis, the study finds that English-language reporting emphasizes responsibility, cooperation, and China's role as a global partner to enhance international legitimacy. In contrast, Chinese-language reporting focuses on livelihood protection, national strategy, and policy implementation to facilitate domestic mobilization. These findings contribute to framing research by introducing "strategic frame differentiation," offering a new perspective on how non-Western states use environmental communication as a dual mechanism to address global image construction and domestic governance simultaneously.
The rapid expansion of generative AI applications and the infrastructures required to support them is posing serious threats to human and planetary health. In this article, we present findings from a study which used innovative online methods to identify knowledge and attitudes concerning these environmental harms among a diverse group of adult Australians. We found that most participants demonstrated some awareness of the environmental harms caused by generative AI technologies and the expansion of hyperscale data centers. However, participants had not yet begun to consider how their own use of these technologies was contributing to these environmental impacts, or the implications for their own lives and wellbeing. For most, these harms therefore remained somewhat hazy and abstract rather than direct threats. In discussing these findings, we refer to scholarship on elite and public imaginaries of novel technologies and offer some reflections on the value of our methods for critical AI and environmental literacy. We conclude with suggestions for how to achieve better public awareness and understanding of the ecological costs of innovative digital technologies such as generative AI by rendering these threats more tangible and immediate.
In the context of growing climate vulnerability in countries like Pakistan, effective climate change communication plays a critical role in shaping public awareness and policy discourse. This study investigates how two leading Pakistani news outlets, Geo News and ARY News, framed climate change on their official X (formerly Twitter) accounts from June 2022 to May 2023. Guided by framing theory and Bolsen and Shapiro's typology, a content analysis identified dominant frames, comparing their distribution across both channels and examine changes over time. External efficacy, response efficacy and environmental consequences were the most frequently used frames while scientific consensus and public health were underrepresented. A new inductive frame "social consequences" was introduced. Comparative analysis revealed distinct framing patterns across both outlets. Trend analysis showed a reactive framing pattern, with coverage at peak during the second phase, during and immediately after the 2022 floods. This study contributes to the literature by extending existing typologies and offering insights into climate communication in the Global South.
African media play a pivotal role in shaping public perceptions of climate change and influencing related policy agendas through framing and constructing climate justice discourses. This study examines how climate change is framed and constructed in news coverage published on AllAfrica, focusing on the evolution of the salience of specific frames and sub-themes. This study conducts a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative discourse analysis of 527 English and French news reports on climate change, published between 2015 and 2025. The findings revealed that the "problem definition" frame and "attribution of responsibility" frame dominated all periods, while the "conflict" frame remained marginal. African media reporting highlights the continent's vulnerability to climate change while simultaneously articulating discourses of climate justice. By foregrounding positive climate futures and scientific consensus, African media create discursive opportunities that provide a basis for policy advocacy and public action.
Discussions of proposed climate solutions, such as carbon dioxide removal (CDR), are multi-layered and contested. This study examines the role that metaphors play as frame devices in news coverage (2018-2024) about CDR. Using critical metaphor analysis, we examined 257 articles from major UK, US, and Canadian news outlets to identify and interpret contrasting metaphorical expressions from journalists and their sources, including industry, science, and civil society. We find that a wide range of source domains, including references to, e.g. historical events, household objects, crime, religion, and medical analogies, is used to metaphorically frame CDR. These metaphors reflect actors' competing ideologies and interests, rooted in hopeful rational-optimist and socio-ecological visions. We also discuss how metaphor use could influence public engagement and policy and reflect on how language might oversimplify or obscure critical aspects of the technology.
As global net zero commitments sit at odds with weak climate policy response, little is known about how the media's news coverage communicates the idea of "net zero" to diverse audiences. This study examines how media portrays stakeholder interests and climate solutions through a mixed-methods analysis of 12,626 news articles published between 2010 and 2022. We find that despite exponential growth in net zero coverage following the Paris Agreement, overall sentiment remains relatively stable, masked by an undercurrent of diverging stakeholder perspectives. This fragmentation manifests through distinct framing patterns where industry and finance stakeholders receive positive coverage when associated with technological solutions, while policy interventions face more critical and negative framing. Our analysis further demonstrates how pivotal global events, particularly the Paris Agreement and Covid-19 pandemic, might have reoriented media narratives toward technological rather than policy-focused climate solutions, though the two are complementary. For environmental communicators and policymakers, our research offers evidence-based insights for developing targeted communication strategies that acknowledge diverse stakeholder portrayals while building dialogue on collective climate action.
This mixed-methods study investigates how the words we use to talk and think about the "places where wild animals live" shape our relationships to these places and our sense of (dis)connection to them. We contend that the words we use to describe these places - such as ecosystem, environment, or home - both reflect and build our mental models of the natural world, which in turn shape our emotional connection and sense of responsibility to preserve these wild places. We use a mixed-methods approach to explore how people in various communities across North America use and respond to different terms in the context of describing wild places. Our findings provide insights into mental models of nature, public perceptions of wildlife, and the potential influence of language on conservation efforts.
While climate change grows as an environmental and societal emergency, misinformation about climate change continues to hinder necessary action. An important step towards neutralizing climate misinformation is identifying the misleading rhetorical techniques used to confuse the public. We expand on previous critical thinking research, developing a detailed methodology for deconstructing and analyzing real-world misinformation. Applying our extended methodology to a comprehensive taxonomy of climate contrarian claims, we find reasoning fallacies in all analyzed claims. The most common fallacies were slothful induction, cherry picking, and oversimplification. Contrarian claims regarding climate solutions, while more nuanced than explicit science denial, are still rife with misleading fallacies. 91% ofanalyzed contrarian claims required hidden assumptions which committed reasoning fallacies, underscoring the limitations of conventional fact-checking. The ubiquity and complexity of misinformation in online spaces and public discussion necessitates holistic, interdisciplinary solutions that can be scaled to meet the immensity of the problem. This research is an example of such an interdisciplinary approach, building on existing natural language processing research with critical thinking, climate science, and climate solutions scholarship. Our results act as a resource for countering contrarian claims, particularly useful to automated applications that detect and fact-check online climate misinformation in real time.
Public debates on mining and mineral extraction often generate conflicting viewpoints, reflecting the tension between the global demand for critical minerals ("mining for climate") and local environmental and socio-economic concerns. This paper examines recent heated discussions and mass protests surrounding the proposed lithium mine in Western Serbia, focusing on the narratives shaping public perceptions of the Jadar project. As the media play a key role in shaping public opinion through analytical articles, this research aims to identify dominant narratives on the (dis)advantages of the Jadar project in daily newspapers, the key actors behind them, and illustrate how poor governance and lack of transparency can delay or halt mining projects by increasing public dissatisfaction. The study analyses articles on lithium, their frequency, and discourse representation in two prominent Serbian dailies with contrasting editorial orientations: Politika, conservative and state-affiliated, and Danas, liberal and opposition-aligned. The findings show that the lack of transparency in the project's early stages contributed to citizen mobilization and the politicization of the issue during 2023-2024. Two opposing narratives unfold simultaneously: a pro-mining narrative emphasizing economic benefits and an anti-mining narrative stressing environmental risks.
Environmental journalism plays a vital role in public discourse but faces challenges in engaging audiences within a fragmented digital media landscape dominated by Big Tech companies. This study explores how data-driven storytelling, personalized news delivery, and community-centered narratives influence audience engagement and trust in environmental journalism, with a specific focus on the Amazon region. Through a series of focus groups with local audiences (including journalists, researchers, activists, and concerned citizens conducted) in partnership with the Brazilian news outlet InfoAmazonia, we analyze audience expectations and consumption habits. Findings reveal a significant asynchrony between in-depth investigative reporting and audiences' preferences on concise, visually-driven content like interactive maps and short videos. Data visualizations are shown to enhance credibility, but digital media platforms serve as the primary, yet algorithmically limited, gateway to access news. Moreover, audiences expressed a strong demand for greater representation of local and Indigenous voices, alongside more solutions-focused narratives in news stories. This research contributes to the existing literature and practice by offering insights for news media on how to produce relevant environmental content for audiences, advocating for a hybrid journalistic approach that balances rigorous data analysis with accessible, human-centered storytelling to foster deeper engagement and trust.
Media discourses on environmental disasters play a crucial role in shaping public opinion, perceptions of the disaster, policy formation, and management strategies. This study employed a computational approach to examine the African media agenda and sentiments surrounding flood disasters in Ghana over 20 years (2004-2024). Findings uncovered media discourses around the complex climate change paradox, government disaster preparedness, and risk management, as well as rural/urban practices and their effects. Results also indicated that the majority of coverage was positive (69.45%), whereas less than half (30.55%) was negative, with no neutral coverage. In addition, the study observed positive sentiments regarding the coverage of the proactive steps taken by the government and its agencies in responding to the disaster. In contrast, negative sentiments focused on the loss of lives and the destruction of property. The study discussed the role of cultural norms in these findings to contribute to the praxis of media and environmental disaster communication.
This article explores how two Danish food and energy companies represent sustainable future landscapes in televized commercials in response to aesthetic conflicts that form part of a wider sensual transition. Using a multimodal discourse analysis of five commercials (2019-2025), the study examines how Arla and Andel Energi discursively construct the Danish landscape as a site where nature and technology converge. The commercials mobilize sensory aesthetics-shifting light, tactile depictions of soil and animals, the sounds of thunder, wind, and machinery-to shape viewers' expectations of the future. In particular, these sensory articulations work to portray climate-altered futures as both threat and opportunity. Our analysis shows that the Danish agricultural and energy sectors rely on this openness as they strategically articulate sustainability within a political and social environment that is highly antagonistic to dissenting voices and conflicts, but supportive of the post-political discourse of ecological modernization.
