Communication Practices and Political Engagement with Climate Change: A Research Agenda

Abstract

In this article, we call for a refocusing of research on citizens' political engagement with climate change. In doing so, we argue that communication practices not only help create the conditions for political engagement but they also comprise the modes of such engagement. Our argument proceeds in four steps. First, we review the literature on public engagement with climate change, concluding that there is a lack of attention to issues regarding the political. Consequently, we make the case for a refocusing of research on political engagement. Second, we explain how the notion of political subjectivity helps us to understand the relation between communication practices and engagement with the politics of climate change. Third, we discuss examples of dominant communication practices that constrain citizen political engagement by depoliticizing climate change, and alternative communication practices that have the potential to politicize. We end by outlining the many research questions that relate to the study of political engagement with climate change.

The “Danger” of Consensus Messaging: Or, Why to Shift From Skeptic-First to Migration-First Approaches

“…In short, an expanded sense of climate change danger requires moving forcefully beyond the "post-political" approaches of consensus messaging (Carvalho and Peterson, 2012;Machin, 2013;Maeseele, 2015;Carvalho et al, 2017).…”

Nature Articulations in Norwegian Advertising Discourse: A Depoliticized Discourse of Climate Change

“…In line with this, numerous researchers have discussed debates on climate change in public discourse (i.e. Doyle, 2013;Gkiouzepas & Botetzagias, 2015;Maeseele & Pepermans, 2017;Maeseele, Raeijmaekers, Van der Steen, Reul, & Paulussen, 2017;Pepermans & Maeseele, 2014;Schmidt, Ivanova, & Schäfer, 2013;Stoddart, Tindall, Smith, & Haluza-Delay, 2017;Swyngedouw, 2011Swyngedouw, , 2013), yet there is a call for scholarship that brings forth knowledge on local meanings of climate and their relationship to human institutions and behavior more broadly (Pearce et al, 2017), more directly dealing with the wider circulation of politicizing discourses and how citizens at large may engage politically (Carvalho, van Wessel, & Maeseele, 2017). Ideology, which binds and justifies social groups' ideas (Hall, 1995), is important to how we perceive and value nature and the natural environment around us and is important in the study of climate change communication because of how it naturalizes a particular historical cultural articulation of nature -"fixing" it, so to speak.…”

“…In an overview of climate change communication, Maeseele and Pepermans (2017) underscore how the hegemony of a particular group or discourse is consolidated through depolitization, in which the discourse of climate change is presented as innocent of power and ideology, and environmental politics is reduced to individual moral action and/or technological innovation . Despite this, the role of ideology in media representations of nature and the environment is under-researched (Carvalho et al, 2017) and some say that the successes or failures of particular claims, frames and messages about environmental issues have to be understood "against the background of the kind of messages, images and ideologies about the environment that dominate and resonate in the wider cultural and symbolic environment" (Hansen, 2011, p. 13). With this in mind, I seek to contribute with knowledge on how nature is articulated in public discoursemore specifically how humans' relationship to nature is constructed via such articulations.…”

“…Such articulations of nature have important implications for Norwegians approach to climate change. Depoliticized discourses and practices are problematized for its reduction of environmental politics to individual moral action and/or technological innovation and Carvalho et al (2017) point out how depoliticizing communication constrains people from actively participating "in the articulation and shaping of alternative futures beyond the status-quo" (128).…”

“…Scholars maintain that communication is key to political engagement and shown that some practices open up spaces for citizens to be active participants in the articulation and shaping of alternative sustainable futures while others foreclose them (Carvalho et al, 2017). Being conscious of how we articulate nature and how we position ourselves and our consumer practices in relation to nature is key.…”