Social media is a transformative digital technology, collapsing the “six degrees ofseparation” which have previously characterized many social networks, and breaking down many of the barriers to individuals communicating with each other. Some commentators suggest that this is having profound effects across society, that social media have opened up new channels for public debates and have revolutionized the communication of prominent public issues such as climate change. In this article we provide the first systematic and critical review of the literature on social media and climate change. We highlight three key findings from the literature: a substantial bias toward Twitter studies, the prevalent approaches to researching climate change on social media (publics, themes, and professional communication), and important empirical findings (the use of mainstream information sources, discussions of “settled science,” polarization, and responses to temperature anomalies).Following this, we identify gaps in the existing literature that should beaddressed by future research: namely, researchers should consider qualitativestudies, visual communication and alternative social media platforms to Twitter.We conclude by arguing for further research that goes beyond a focus on sciencecommunication to a deeper examination of how publics imagine climate changeand its future role in social life.
Polarizing may be a logical consequence, but it’s certainly not helpful. Of course I understand that everyone wants to regain control of the situation. However, sacrificing transmissions towers, or even human scapegoats to satisfy our need to understand, crosses every line. But it is easy to understand that in their conspiracy theories people try to regain control of a reality that is beyond any understanding. It’s actually also quite cheap to dismiss everything as superstition and fake news, it doesn’t meet our scientific standards.
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It is argued that a mainstream area that has become unpleasant is rejected by some and protected by others. Both poles, the renegades and the fanatical stragglers, grew out of the same discontent, although the polarized stayers are strongly identified with the in between. This creates the blind spot, the gap, and the in between is disregarded. Let the third and largest group live there, the indifferent, the people who think it is all right. They see both the change minded and the conservatives as somewhat polarized.
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