Handbook

Subject Area: Media, Culture and Technology

Media, communication and the climate crisis have had a long, entangled relationship. Media and communications play key roles in the sciences of climate change themselves. For example, climate change sciences use computer modelling extensively, and also rely on global media networks that both circulate environmental data and allow for collaboration and discussion among scientists. Media and communication also play a role in bringing climate change science to the public. In the process, they help frame the way climate change is discussed. They thus play a fascinating if often conflicted series of roles in setting key social and political agendas with regard to climate change. On the other hand, dealing with climate change has challenged the way that media and communications work. The mainstream media has had to change its approach to what counts as news, and to the way it sets agendas. Journalists have had to grapple with complex science in new ways. At the same time, newer media technologies such as social media and blogging platforms have augmented and often by-passed more traditional media platforms. This has transformed communications around environmental issues such as climate change. All this has created an increasingly complex setting both for the communication of science and for political communication around issues such as climate change. You will gain insight into the history, present and future of the increasingly important relations between media, communication and climate change. You will explore the ways in which climate change issues are taken up in media and communications theory, in everyday and working life, and in practices such as journalism, science, documentary making, online discussion and political communication.