Is there a link between climate change scepticism and populism? An analysis of web tracking and survey data from Europe and the US

Yan, Pu; Schroeder, Ralph; Stier, Sebastian

doi:10.1080/1369118x.2020.1864005

Cited by 32 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…On the one hand, this concerns the use of these methods for data retrieval , for instance scholars acquiring “big data” via crawling, scraping, or by relying on Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Computational methods have been used … to collect data on how organizational and individual, professional and non‐professional communicators position themselves towards climate change by using transcripts of national parliamentary debates (Majdik, 2019), crawling websites and social media accounts of influential stakeholders (Adam et al, 2020), or scraping websites hosting policy documents (Biesbroek et al, 2020); to collect data on how public communication about climate change is structured by using programming scripts to access databases on news coverage (Buckingham et al, 2020) or social media platforms (Pearce et al, 2014); or to collect data on audience behavior towards climate change by relying on Google search trends (Le Nghiem et al, 2016), individual users' social media content (Williams et al, 2015), or digital traces from web tracking (Yan et al, 2021). …”

Section: Computational Methods For the Analysis Of Climate Change Com...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational methods for the analysis of climate change communication: Towards an integrative and reflexive approach

Schäfer

Hase

2022

WIREs Climate Change

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Computational methods, in particular text‐as‐data or Natural Language Processing (NLP) approaches, have become popular to study climate change communication as a global and large‐scale phenomenon. Scholars have discussed opportunities and challenges of these methods for climate change communication, with some proponents and critics taking strong positions, either embracing the potential of computational methods or critically questioning their value. Mirroring developments in the broader social scientific debate, we aim to bring both sides together by proposing a reflexive, integrative approach for computational research on climate change communication: We reflect on strengths (e.g., making data big and small, nowcasting observations) and weaknesses (e.g., introducing empiricist epistemologies, ignoring biases) of computational approaches. Moreover, we also provide concrete and constructive guidance on when and how to integrate (or not integrate) these methods based on theoretical considerations. We thereby understand computational methods as part of an ever‐increasing, diverse toolbox for analyzing climate change communication. This article is categorized under: The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge

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Section: Computational Methods For the Analysis Of Climate Change Com...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational methods for the analysis of climate change communication: Towards an integrative and reflexive approach

Schäfer

Hase

2022

WIREs Climate Change

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“…In addition to political elites, news media, particularly conservative news media and far-right populism media, are institutional sources that influence the production and circulation of anti-intellectual discourses on social media. Although anti-intellectual discourse is likely to appear in both left- and right-wing news media, Yan et al (2021) found that science skeptics were mostly associated with far-right populism websites. The far-right media often claim themselves as the alternative media, which are “corrective of ‘traditional,’ ‘legacy,’ or ‘mainstream’ news media in a given sociocultural and historical context” ( Holt et al, 2019 : 862).…”

Section: The Constructions Of Anti-intellectual Discourses On Twittermentioning

confidence: 99%

Anti-intellectualism amid the COVID-19 pandemic: The discursive elements and sources of anti-Fauci tweets

Chen

Long²,

Jun³

et al. 2023

Public Underst Sci

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Anti-intellectualism (resentment, hostility, and mistrust of experts) has become a growing concern during the pandemic. Using topic modeling and supervised machine learning, this study examines the elements and sources of anti-Fauci tweets as a case of anti-intellectual discourse on social media. Based on the theoretical framework of science-related populism, we identified three anti-intellectual discursive elements in anti-Fauci tweets: people-scientist antagonism, delegitimizing the motivation of scientists, and delegitimizing the knowledge of scientists. Delegitimizing the motivation of scientists appeared the most in anti-Fauci tweets. Politicians, conservative news media, and non-institutional actors (e.g. individuals and grassroots advocacy organizations) co-constructed the production and circulation of anti-intellectual discourses on Twitter. Anti-intellectual discourses resurged even under Twitter’s content moderation mechanism. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for building public trust in scientists, effective science communication, and content moderation policies on social media.

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“…As for media-level variables, we were interested in the topic of the URL identified by means of a keyword search within the URL and this included international trade, immigration, citizenship, and cultural diversity. Media type, as mentioned in the previous section, was coded by team members of the research project [Stier et al, 2020;Yan et al, 2021] and included six media categories: commercial broadcast, digitalborn news outlet, hyper-partisan media, public service broadcast, quality newspaper or magazine, and tabloid news websites.…”

Section: Web Tracking Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The rise and fall of public attention to online news about social issues such as climate change is often influenced by offline events [Yan et al, 2021]. Attention to globalisation related news websites was measured here by calculating average time spent on a globalisation related news website per panellist.…”

Section: Public Attention To Globalisation Related News Content Onlinementioning

confidence: 99%

Globalisation, media trust, and populism: A comparative study of the US and Germany

Yan

Schroeder

2022

International Communication Gazette

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Globalisation is an area where supporters and non-supporters of left- and right-wing parties disagree, both for domestic and international policies. Populists see metropolitan elites as ‘corrupt’ and oppose policies that encourage globalisation in trade, immigration, and multi-culturalism. Media play important roles in providing pro- and anti-globalisation content, both in traditional and digital media. We use a unique combination of large-scale web-tracking and cross-country survey data to study the interactions between populism, media trust, consumption, and globalisation attitudes in the US and Germany. We find country variances for different aspects of globalisation, particularly among the supporters of right-wing populist parties or leaders. Populist anti-elitism and a feeling of powerlessness in relation to influencing the country's politics are two important factors behind the backlash against globalisation. We also find that a higher level of trust in public service media is associated with more supportive attitudes toward globalisation.

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Is there a link between climate change scepticism and populism? An analysis of web tracking and survey data from Europe and the US

Abstract: He has interests in virtual environments, the social aspects of e-science, and the sociology of science and technology. He has written extensively about virtual reality technology.

Cited by 32 publications

References 26 publications

Computational methods for the analysis of climate change communication: Towards an integrative and reflexive approach

Computational methods for the analysis of climate change communication: Towards an integrative and reflexive approach

Anti-intellectualism amid the COVID-19 pandemic: The discursive elements and sources of anti-Fauci tweets

Globalisation, media trust, and populism: A comparative study of the US and Germany

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