Climate Change and Communication: Media, Emotion and Environmental Advocacy

2017 | History & Politics

This study of contemporary political communication focuses on what is widely considered to be the most important environmental and political problem of our time: climate change. Its principal objective is to explore the transformations which politics has undergone in recent decades through the mediation of environmental discourse and, in so doing, to advance current understandings of environmental advocacy and contemporary Western political culture. Climate change is increasingly understood as a post-political issue, widely seen as cutting across conventional left and right wing concerns - perhaps even beyond any need for democratic deliberation and debate. Examining the communications strategies of diverse climate change campaigners, from mainstream politicians to celebrities and online activists, Media, Emotion and Climate Change explores how the issue is used by elites as potentially offering a sense of purpose or mission in the absence of political visions of the future; and how it provides a focus for much broader anxieties about a loss of modernist political agency and meaning.

Drawing on a wide range of literature and case studies, and taking a critical and contextual approach to the analysis of climate change communication in mediatised society, the book: * Investigates emotive and therapeutic discourse and emotional appeals in environmentalism * Assesses and explains the extent to which climate change is understood as a 'post-political', moral issue and how this may affect levels of support and action * Evaluates and develops the psycho-cultural approach to political communications and popular media culture * Provides a critical assessment of environmental discourse which can inform future political actors in their efforts to communicate politics effectively * Explores the similarities and contrasts between different political actors, working across different media forms and genres but concerned with the same issue Media, Emotion and Climate Change offers a truly original understanding of the contemporary framework of political and media communications, particularly because the topic of climate change is one of the most critical socio-scientific issues facing our global society.

The book should be a valuable resource for students and scholars of environmental studies, communication studies and media and film studies.

Philip Hammond (Author)

Hugh Ortega Breton (Author)