Blogging on the ice: Connecting audiences with climate-change sciences

Abstract

Scientists working in Antarctica have recognized the need to counteract problems associated with mainstream media’s treatment of the climate-change crisis. For this reason, several of them have assumed the role of citizen journalists in order to report on the effects of global warming first-hand. More specifically, they have chosen to communicate directly with the general public through official or personal blogs. In so doing they are capitalizing on the way the Internet is changing science news and journalism. This article draws on an analysis of more than 50 Antarctic blogs published during the International Polar Year (2007–08), as well as data from e-interviews with a broad selection of bloggers, in order to examine how scientists ‘on the ice’ act as citizen journalists. The article explores the idea of citizen journalism as education and the extent to which the scientists achieve an unmediated form of communication through their blogging efforts. It concludes by suggesting this new form of citizen journalism, beyond raising people’s awareness of the climate-change crisis, also signals an important way in which mainstream environmental reporting can be reinvigorated.

Análisis comparativo de la presencia de las universidades españolas en prensa digital nacional y local

“…Se seleccionó esta forma de interacción como una de las herramientas que contribuyen a crear un ambiente participativo y dialógico en el entorno online, haciendo del lector más que un simple consumidor de información científica (Montgomery, 2009) y contribuyendo a salvar la tradicional desconexión percibida entre científicos y legos (Thorsen, 2013).…”

Comparative analysis of Spanish universities presence in national and local digital press

“…This interaction was selected as one of the tools that contribute to create a participatory and dialogic environment in the online media, allowing the reader to be more than a simple consumer of information (Montgomery, 2009). This is particularly important in science news as it helps saving the traditionally perceived gap between scientists and lay people (Thorsen, 2013).…”

Climate change frames and frame formation : An analysis of climate change communication in the Swedish agricultural sector

“…Media frames of climate change have typically been studied by analysing highquality newspapers worldwide (e.g., Akerlof et al, 2012;Dotson et al, 2012;Nerlich et al, 2012;Vestergård, 2011;Zamith et al, 2013) and to some extent tabloids (e.g., Kumpu, 2013;Waitt et al, 2012) and on-line sources (e.g., Jančevskaite and Telešiene, 2013;Scharl et al, 2013;Thorsen, 2013). In an analysis of United States (US) media and political debate from the late 1990s and onwards, Nisbet and Scheufele (2009) (Boykoff, 2008), describing climate change as sensational, alarming (Hibberd and Nguyen, 2013;Russill and Nyssa, 2009), and harmful (Ambler, 2007;Carvalho and Burgess, 2005;Zamith et al, 2013).…”