Climate knowledge or Climate debate? Comparing expert and media treatment of key climate concepts
What is it about?
This article offers a methodology to identify the terms that are the most likely to see their meaning vary as they enter media discourse, and provides a thorough analysis of the mediatic treatment of two of those terms, namely adaptation and energy security. It thus compares the representations of those two concepts in media and expert discourses, accounting for the ideological motivations behind those representations and for their potential implications regarding knowledge transmission and climate action. It concludes by arguing that the press has a key role to play not only in climate knowledge transmission but also in its production, highlighting gaps in the social dimension of climate change (for eg.: the acceptability of specific climate policies) for the latter to be then studied further by researchers in the humanities.
Why is it important?
The findings might help develop literacy around two key concepts in the climate debate, namely adaptation and energy security. More specifically, studying the use of those terms in the press has allowed for questions which might not be necessarily addressed by science to be brought to the fore: how should climate adaptation/mitigation be financed and who should be responsible for their funding? Should these two issues be considered as equal priorities? Are these more important than other societal concerns and if so, can focusing on the former have detrimental consequences for those other concerns? As such, studying the treatment of specific concepts by lay audiences can be a way to make those underlying questions explicit and allow for actual answers to emerge, be it through overt public and political debates or through further scientific research.