IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/wirecc/v7y2016i3p345-369.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reflections on climate change communication research and practice in the second decade of the 21st century: what more is there to say?

Author

Listed:
  • Susanne C. Moser

Abstract

Appreciable advances have been made in recent years in raising climate change awareness and enhancing support for climate and energy policies. There also has been considerable progress in understanding of how to effectively communicate climate change. This progress raises questions about the future directions of communication research and practice. What more is there to say? Through a selective literature review, focused on contributions since a similar stock‐taking exercise in 2010,1 the article delineates significant advances, emerging trends and topics, and tries to chart critical needs and opportunities going forward. It describes the climate communication landscape midway through the second decade of the 21st century to contextualize the challenges faced by climate change communication as a scientific field. Despite the important progress made on key scientific challenges laid out in 2010, persistent challenges remain (superficial public understanding of climate change, transitioning from awareness and concern to action, communicating in deeply politicized and polarized environments, and dealing with the growing sense of overwhelm and hopelessness). In addition, new challenges and topics have emerged that communication researchers and practitioners now face. The study reflects on the crucial need to improve the interaction between climate communication research and practice, and calls for dedicated science‐practice boundary work focused on climate change communication. A set of new charges to climate communicators and researchers are offered in hopes to move climate change communication to a new place—at once more humble yet also more ambitious than ever before, befitting to the crucial role it could play in the cultural work humanity faces with climate change. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:345–369. doi: 10.1002/wcc.403 This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication

Suggested Citation

  • Susanne C. Moser, 2016. "Reflections on climate change communication research and practice in the second decade of the 21st century: what more is there to say?," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(3), pages 345-369, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:wirecc:v:7:y:2016:i:3:p:345-369
    DOI: 10.1002/wcc.403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.403
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/wcc.403?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Victoria Wibeck & Tina‐Simone Neset, 2020. "Focus groups and serious gaming in climate change communication research—A methodological review," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(5), September.
    2. Elise Talgorn & Helle Ullerup, 2023. "Invoking ‘Empathy for the Planet’ through Participatory Ecological Storytelling: From Human-Centered to Planet-Centered Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-31, May.
    3. Luis Pérez-González, 2020. "‘Is climate science taking over the science?’: A corpus-based study of competing stances on bias, dogma and expertise in the blogosphere," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Saffron O’Neill & Roz Pidcock, 2021. "Introducing the Topical Collection: ‘Climate change communication and the IPCC’," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 1-7, December.
    5. Antonio Castillo Esparcia & Sara López Gómez, 2021. "Public Opinion about Climate Change in United States, Partisan View and Media Coverage of the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 25) in Madrid," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-19, April.
    6. Diana Bogueva & Dora Marinova, 2020. "Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) for Responding to Climate Change," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-28, August.
    7. Michael K. Goodman & Julie Doyle & Nathan Farrell, 2020. "Practising everyday climate cultures: understanding the cultural politics of climate change," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 1-7, November.
    8. Katharina van Baal & Stephanie Stiel & Peter Schulte, 2023. "Public Perceptions of Climate Change and Health—A Cross-Sectional Survey Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-11, January.
    9. Johannes Persson & Kristina Blennow & Luísa Gonçalves & Alexander Borys & Ioan Dutcă & Jari Hynynen & Emilia Janeczko & Mariyana Lyubenova & Simon Martel & Jan Merganic & Katarína Merganičová & Mikko , 2020. "No polarization–Expected Values of Climate Change Impacts among European Forest Professionals and Scientists," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-12, March.
    10. Haoran Chu & Janet Z. Yang, 2020. "Risk or Efficacy? How Psychological Distance Influences Climate Change Engagement," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(4), pages 758-770, April.
    11. Aleksandra Dulic & Miles Thorogood & Marlowe Sam & Maria Correia & Sarah Alexis & Jeanette Armstrong, 2023. "Okanagan Waterways Past, Present and Future: Approaching Sustainability through Immersive Museum Exhibition," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-25, November.
    12. Scott T. Armbruster & Rajesh V. Manchanda & Ngan Vo, 2022. "When Are Loss Frames More Effective in Climate Change Communication? An Application of Fear Appeal Theory," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-16, June.
    13. Dylan Bugden, 2022. "Denial and distrust: explaining the partisan climate gap," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 1-23, February.
    14. Anne K. Armstrong & Marianne E. Krasny, 2020. "Tracing Paths from Research to Practice in Climate Change Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-21, June.
    15. Denghang Chen & Yanlong Guo & Chenyang Wang & Yinrui Xu & Han Zhang, 2022. "Dispersion and Disparity: Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis of Research on Climate Change Science Communication," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(23), pages 1-17, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:wirecc:v:7:y:2016:i:3:p:345-369. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1757-7799 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.