Differentiated Trust Strategies and Rebellious Acceptance: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of the Trust Strategies Used by Scientist Communicators and Citizen Science Communicators in Chinese Online Climate Communication

Abstract

Trust is a core issue in online climate communication where communicators are found to be diverse. This study explores the trust strategies used by different communicators and their audience acceptance in climate communication on Zhihu through Qualitative Comparative Analysis. The results indicate there are structured differences in the trust strategies adopted by scientist communicators and citizen science communicators when facing climate change issues. In terms of audience acceptance, audiences have shown considerable initiative and exhibited an acceptance characteristic with certain Chinese cultural features which highlights the context of acceptance in the research and practices of trust issues in climate communication.