“We're the Ones to Blame”: Citizens' Representations of Climate Change and the Role of the Media

Olausson, Ulrika

doi:10.1080/17524032.2011.585026

Cited by 133 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Existing SRT research into climate change communication suggests the existence of some key social representations in Western industrialised societies (Höijer, 2010;Olausson, 2010Olausson, , 2011Smith & Joffe, 2013. The notion that anthropogenic climate change is largely a human-induced environmental problem constitutes a hegemonic representation, which has been encouraged since at least 1988 .…”

Section: A Key Social Representation Of Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some SRT researchers of climate change have begun to do this (e.g. Höijer, 2010;Olausson, 2010Olausson, , 2011. Moscovici (1988) has postulated three types of social representation: hegemonic, emancipated and polemic.…”

Section: Constructors Of Social Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given the dialectic relationship between media representation and perception, it is necessary to theorise how individuals might negotiate and respond to media content and other forms of representation (Olausson, 2011). Breakwell (1993Breakwell ( , 2001) has outlined how individuals "personalise" social representations.…”

Section: Personalising Social Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sources of societal information such as the media can help develop social representations, since "[a]s a forum for the discourses of others and a speaker in their own right, the media have a key part in the production and transformation of meanings" (Carvalho, 2007, p. 224). Furthermore, it is necessary to "properly acknowledge the news media as the primary intermediary between science, politics, and the citizens, as well as their agenda-setting role for citizens' meaning making on climate change" (Olausson, 2011). Yet, both the media and individuals function as co-constructors of social representations (Breakwell, 2001), and there is an important and dynamic interplay between media representation, identity and personal experience (Smith & Joffe, 2013).…”

Section: Constructors Of Social Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social representations of climate change facilitate sense-making of a potentially obscure and esoteric environmental phenomenon originating from the scientific domain. An SRT approach to climate change enables researchers to gain insights into the ways in which climate change is represented in channels of societal information and the ways in which it is deployed cognitively and rhetorically by social actors in communication Olausson, 2011;Smith & Joffe, 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human Responses to Climate Change: Social Representation, Identity and Socio-psychological Action

Jaspal¹,

Nerlich

Cinnirella

2013

Environmental Communication

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Jaspal, Rusi and Nerlich, Brigitte and Cinirella, Marco (2014) A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. AbstractClimate change is one of the most important global challenges in the twenty-first century, given that a changing climate is likely to have negative and potentially irreversible consequences for the environment and human beings. Drawing upon Social Representations Theory and Identity Process Theory from social psychology, we argue that research should focus upon, and successfully integrate, three levels of analysis, namely (1) how climate change knowledge is constructed and circulates (social representation); (2) the role of identity in relation to these representations (identity); and (3) how people might respond to them (action). It is suggested that identity processes may determine how people process social representations of climate change, and that they mediate the link between representations and environmental behaviour. Understanding human responses to climate change necessitates an integrative social sciences perspective, in terms of disciplinary, theoretical and methodological approaches.

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Section: A Key Social Representation Of Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Constructors Of Social Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Personalising Social Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Constructors Of Social Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Human Responses to Climate Change: Social Representation, Identity and Socio-psychological Action

Jaspal¹,

Nerlich

Cinnirella

2013

Environmental Communication

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Corporate Environmental Reporting and News Coverage of Environmental Issues: an Agenda‐Setting Perspective

Pollach

2013

Bus Strat Env

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Departing from agenda‐setting theory, this paper explores whether environmental content in newspapers is related to corporate environmental agendas presented in corporate environmental reports and annual reports. Based on a sample of 1668 corporate reports published between 1997 and 2008, this paper compares corporate reporting against environmental news content over the same period with time lags of one and two years as well as without time lags. The results suggest that the media agenda and the corporate environmental agenda mirror each other. The results further suggest that, for some issues, there may be an impact of the news media agenda on corporate environmental agendas, but not vice versa. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

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Construction and contestation of climate activist identities in the comments section of a large UK‐based online newspaper

Lewis,

Vignoles

2023

Euro J Social Psych

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Success of global attempts to limit climate change depends partly upon public support for demands of climate activist groups. We examined the role of social representation and identity processes in shaping opposition to climate activism, through a discursive thematic analysis of 628 online comments on 20 MailOnline articles about climate activists. Members of the commenting community propagated representations of climate activists as an immoral and incompetent, low‐value to society, ideological Other. Commenters contrasted negative representations of activists with constructions of their own shared identity as hardworking, moral and competent. These constructions serve to undermine and delegitimize the activist voice, while simultaneously advancing a political project rooted in ideological and class‐based concerns. Future research might explore the possibility of engaging wider support through generating competing representations of activist identity. Our research illustrates the value of jointly focusing on social representations and social identity processes for understanding issue‐based societal polarisation.

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“We're the Ones to Blame”: Citizens' Representations of Climate Change and the Role of the Media

Cited by 133 publications

References 35 publications

Human Responses to Climate Change: Social Representation, Identity and Socio-psychological Action

Human Responses to Climate Change: Social Representation, Identity and Socio-psychological Action

Corporate Environmental Reporting and News Coverage of Environmental Issues: an Agenda‐Setting Perspective

Construction and contestation of climate activist identities in the comments section of a large UK‐based online newspaper

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