Climate media attention is growing, but so is news overload and misinformation

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We receive so much stimuli and information every day through our digital devices that we often feel overwhelmed and overwhelmed. We have greater access to information than at any other time in history. Does this help us better understand the risks we face and the measures needed to tackle the climate crisis once and for all?

The truth is that this overabundance of information may not put citizens in the best position to know and understand the risks we face and the measures necessary to address the climate crisis.

The 5th Report of the Climate Change Communication Observatory 2023, entitled Communication of the climate crisis and the social transfer of knowledge on climate action in the media and on the Internet , collects the results of the content analysis applied to a sample of 2,627 news items from 41 conventional media in Spain with national and regional coverage: 20 television channels; 17 radio stations and 4 print newspapers; 311 online sources , mostly digital newspapers, and 381 X accounts, formerly Twitter.

The Fifth Report examined the degree of compliance with several ethical codes relating to communication on the climate crisis in 2023, in particular the Decalogue of recommendations for communication on climate change and the ecological transition .

The volume of information increases

The results indicated that the first recommendation of the Decalogue regarding the need to promote the frequency, continuity and transversality of climate change in the media became a reality in 2023. The volume of information circulated on the climate crisis continued its upward trend since 2018, becoming a relevant public issue, with an average of 3.6 and 3.9 daily publications in the conventional and digital press, respectively.

In conventional broadcasting media, the average was slightly lower, reaching an average of 1.3 news items per channel per day in radio media and 1.1 in television media.

In 2023, we saw that the media no longer reported climate change as a crisis that is distant in time and space. The speed at which warming is occurring and the perception of the impacts in all territories placed the narrative of climate change in the here and now.

The news genre predominated on radio and television when communicating about climate change, although the transversality of this crisis as an informative reference led to its expansion to other sections, especially in the press, to the extent that the impacts and solutions affect the economy, health or food.

In the most widely read conventional and digital newspapers we see broad coverage and the existence of specialized sections. In the public broadcasting media, we find traditional programs on environmental information, although the seriousness, transversality and acceleration of this crisis demands the creation of new spaces more quickly.

As for the most commonly used thematic frameworks, the differences by media can be seen in the following figure.

Isidro Gómez. Fifth Report of the Climate Change Communication Observatory 2023

Scientific sources, yes, but insufficient

Here it is worth considering an important difference between the media and the X network. While in 95% of the information in the media it is possible to identify the source of data, in X this percentage is significantly reduced. On the other hand, it should be noted that in two thirds of the publications analysed in all the media a single source of information is used.

In 2023, conventional radio and television media made progress in fulfilling the Decalogue when it came to giving priority to scientific sources, which were also the most frequent in X.

The initiatives undertaken by the scientific community and by journalism specialising in science and the environment on various platforms were noteworthy, offering alternative formulas that could be inspiring for broadcast media.

Gender bias in the media and anonymity in X

In 2023, the gender perspective was introduced into the study, analysing the gender of the declarants and the main person alluded to in all the media. The results have been surprising and revealing: the male gender was the majority in the possible roles of the main declarant – scientist, journalist, politician, from the administration or businessman. Only women are the majority in the role of activism. Gender or identity could not be identified in 32% of the cases, a percentage that increased by X.

The impacts were reported more than the causes, mainly associated with heat waves and lack of rain. It is worth highlighting the work carried out by meteorological information professionals when explaining the climate crisis.

The Decalogue emphasises the need to communicate the route of this ecological transition that we are collectively undertaking. The path has been traced through mitigation and adaptation measures. The former were communicated in 53.4% ​​of cases and the most frequently mentioned were the conservation of natural ecosystems, the production of energy from renewable sources and the need to change citizen consumption.

As for adaptation measures, we found that the average number of reports in which none of these measures were included rose to 49% of the total. The conservation of natural ecosystems, the necessary improvement in the management and daily use of water and education in values ​​were the three most relevant.

Denialism and the brakes on climate action

The Decalogue also refers to the need to renounce false symmetry, that is, to renounce placing the opinion of a scientist who is an expert in an area on the same level as that of another unqualified person, as well as the need to reveal denialism in discourse, in order to refute false information or beliefs.

In 2023, errors and falsehoods were detected that were related to the lack of knowledge about what was said or published, mainly on social media, but also in some media. We find truly worrying those speeches prepared with the deliberate intention of generating distrust in the message of science, or in the mitigation and adaptation measures deployed.

Here we find interests that, for various reasons, tried to deliberately misinform. 2023 was a year in which regional, municipal and national elections were held, and we were able to see how polarization and various denialist postulates became part of the campaign strategies .

The climate crisis and the ecological transition place us before great challenges that could mark a change of era. This can arouse uncertainty and fear in a large part of the population, which makes us more vulnerable to manipulation strategies, which will be more successful the less we understand both the problem and the solutions.

In the face of these risks, quality information and media and digital literacy can generate the necessary antibodies to combat information overload strategies. We need quality information and public service, something that can only be guaranteed by scientific sources and trained, independent information professionals with decent working conditions.

The Observatory’s 6th Report, corresponding to the 2024 study, will once again analyse all these aspects. It will also focus on the relationship between artificial intelligence and communication of the climate crisis. We will report on it in spring 2025.

Author Bio: Gemma Teso is Professor of the Department of Sociology: Methodology and Theory and researcher at the Climate Change Communication Observatory at Complutense University of Madrid

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