case study media climate change

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

How academic research and news media cover climate change: a case study from chile.

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Corrigendum: How academic research and news media cover climate change: a case study from Chile

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• 1 Education, Research, and Innovation (ERI) Sector, NEOM, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia
• 2 Departamento de Ciencias del Lenguaje, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Introduction: Climate change has significant impacts on society, including the environment, economy, and human health. To effectively address this issue, it is crucial for both research and news media coverage to align their efforts and present accurate and comprehensive information to the public. In this study, we use a combination of text-mining and web-scrapping methods, as well as topic-modeling techniques, to examine the similarities, discrepancies, and gaps in the coverage of climate change in academic and general-interest publications in Chile.

Methods: We analyzed 1,261 academic articles published in the Web of Science and Scopus databases and 5,024 news articles from eight Chilean electronic platforms, spanning the period from 2012 to 2022.

Results: The findings of our investigation highlight three key outcomes. Firstly, the number of articles on climate change has increased substantially over the past decade, reflecting a growing interest and urgency surrounding the issue. Secondly, while both news media and academic research cover similar themes, such as climate change indicators, climate change impacts, and mitigation and adaptation strategies, the news media provides a wider variety of themes, including climate change and society and climate politics, which are not as commonly explored in academic research. Thirdly, academic research offers in-depth insights into the ecological consequences of global warming on coastal ecosystems and their inhabitants. In contrast, the news media tends to prioritize the tangible and direct impacts, particularly on agriculture and urban health.

Discussion: By integrating academic and media sources into our study, we shed light on their complementary nature, facilitating a more comprehensive communication and understanding of climate change. This analysis serves to bridge the communication gap that commonly, exists between scientific research and news media coverage. By incorporating rigorous analysis of scientific research with the wider reach of the news media, we enable a more informed and engaged public conversation on climate change.

1. Introduction

Climate change is the most pervasive threat to the world's natural, social, political, and economic systems. Human activities have caused a rise in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere and caused the earth's surface temperature to rise, leading to many other changes around the world—in the atmosphere, on land, and in the oceans ( Wyser et al., 2020 ; Masson-Delmotte et al., 2021 ). Indicators of these changes include increases in global average air and ocean temperature, rising global sea levels ( Zemp et al., 2019 ; Garcia-Soto et al., 2021 ; Oliver et al., 2021 ), amplification of permafrost thawing and glacier retreat ( Sommer et al., 2020 ; Wilkenskjeld et al., 2022 ), reduction of snow and ice cover ( Shepherd et al., 2018 ), ocean acidification ( Doney et al., 2020 ) and stronger and more frequent extreme events such as heatwaves, storms, droughts, wildfires, and flooding ( Abram et al., 2021 ; van der Wiel and Bintanja, 2021 ). These changes are projected to continue throughout at least the rest of this century ( Smale et al., 2019 ; Cook et al., 2020 ; Kwiatkowski et al., 2020 ; Ortega et al., 2021 ). Mitigation and adaptation are two complementary strategies for addressing climate change ( Abubakar and Dano, 2020 ; Diamond et al., 2020 ; Tosun, 2022 ). Mitigation focuses on reducing emissions or enhancing GHG sinks, while adaptation involves building resilience to the unavoidable impacts on people and ecosystems. To be successful, these efforts require a deep scientific understanding, as well as the active engagement of the scientific community, civil society, and other stakeholders ( Wamsler, 2017 ; Tai and Robinson, 2018 ; Gonçalves et al., 2022 ).

News media and academic research have distinct roles in communicating scientific findings on climate change ( Corbett, 2015 ). News media rapidly disseminate scientific findings to a broader audience, shaping public understanding and influencing science-policy translation, practices, politics, public opinion, and understanding of climate change. They select and frame information to shape public awareness and perception, often influenced by various factors such as political, economic, scientific, ecological, or social events. Academic research provides a scientific foundation, evidence-based insights, and focuses on rigorous methodologies, data analysis, and the generation of scientific knowledge related to climate change. Aligning news media and academic research in their coverage is essential for effectively addressing climate change. Consistent messaging and shared thematic structures between media and academia build public trust and understanding, enabling informed decision-making and collective action. However, it's important to acknowledge that variations may exist between news media and academic research coverage due to factors like economic development, political influences, and differing focuses on the societal dimension of climate change ( Hase et al., 2021 ).

Over the past decade, media coverage of climate science has grown in accuracy, though the extent and type of coverage varies between countries and is often connected to political, scientific, ecological, or social events ( Shehata and Hopmann, 2012 ; Schmidt et al., 2013 ; Lopera and Moreno, 2014 ; Schäfer and Schlichting, 2014 ; Stecula and Merkley, 2019 ; Hase et al., 2021 ; Dubash et al., 2022 ). A growing body of experimental research has explored how climate change has been represented in news media ( Dotson et al., 2012 ; Wozniak et al., 2015 ; Barkemeyer et al., 2017 ; Bohr, 2020 ; Keller et al., 2020 ) as well as providing an overview of the state of knowledge on the science of climate change ( Berrang-Ford et al., 2015 ; Pacifici et al., 2015 ; Rojas-Downing et al., 2017 ; Cianconi et al., 2020 ; Fawzy et al., 2020 ; Olabi and Abdelkareem, 2022 ; Talukder et al., 2022 ). As far as we know, however, no previous research has investigated simultaneously news media coverage and academia's research agenda on climate change globally or locally. Therefore, the primary goal of our study is to evaluate, by means of text-mining, web-scraping methods, and topic-modeling techniques, the extent of alignment between news media and academic research in their coverage of climate change topics in the context of Chile. By examining the content and comparing the thematic focus of climate change discourse in both sources, this study will contribute to understanding the similarities, discrepancies, and gaps in the coverage of climate change in Chile. Furthermore, the findings can inform future efforts to improve the alignment and comprehensiveness of climate change communication between news media and academia, ultimately promoting public awareness and understanding of this critical global issue ( Leuzinger et al., 2019 ; Albagli and Iwama, 2022 ).

Chile is particularly interesting as study model due to a variety of political, geographic, ecological, political, and social factors. Despite contributing only 0.23% to global GHG emissions ( Labarca et al., 2023 ), Chile is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts. Evidence of current and future effects of climate change on Chilean territory has been mounting ( Bozkurt et al., 2017 ; Araya-Osses et al., 2020 ; Martínez-Retureta et al., 2021 ), which could have detrimental consequences for citizens' health and wellbeing by impacting key sectors such as fisheries and aquaculture, forestry, agriculture and livestock, mining, energy, and water resources. Additionally, the Government of Chile chaired the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP25) in Spain ( Navia, 2019 ) and has committed to reducing its GHG emissions by 30% compared to 2007 levels as part of its nationally determined contributions. Previous studies have explored ideological bias in media coverage of climate change in Chile ( Dotson et al., 2012 ), however there is a lack of research comparing academic research with news media. Although this study focuses on climate change in Chile, its results more broadly inform gaps in the coverage of climate change between academic and media discourse and emphasizes the importance of analyzing both sources to improve public understanding of climate change issues.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. academic articles.

The ISI Web of Science WOS Core Collection ( https://apps.webofknowledge.com/ ) and Scopus ( https://www.scopus.com/home.uri ) database were chosen for the collection of academic articles. On January 18, 2023, we retrieved all publications related to climate change in Chile using the following Boolean search strategy: [(climat * chang * OR global chang * OR “climat * emergenc * OR “climat * crisis OR “global warming) AND Chile * ]. A comprehensive search strategy was employed to identify relevant publications from 2012 to 2022, without any language restrictions Following the search based on these criteria, a total of 1,758 articles from Web of Science (WOS) and 1,730 articles from Scopus were retrieved. The search results were downloaded in.xlsx format for further analysis. To ensure data accuracy, a manual comparison was conducted between the SCOPUS and WOS records, which involved examining the title, primary author, source title, and year of publication. All the articles obtained, including their titles and abstracts, were exclusively in English. Duplicate articles were discarded. We next used the title and abstract- when available- of each article to ensure we only included studies aimed at understanding climate change in Chile either by Chilean or international scientists. We include original articles and reviews, but not conference proceedings or books/book chapters, in our analysis. Articles without an abstract were also excluded. This resulted in 1,261 articles used to build the academic corpus, which comprises the following metadata for each document: database, title, abstract, and publication year.

2.2. News media articles

Climate Change coverage from Chilean electronic news platforms was also studied over the 10-year period from 2012 to 2022. This time period was determined by the availability of items on the selected platforms. The sample included eight electronic platforms: La Tercera, Meganoticias, CNN Chile, El Mostrador, T13, CHV Noticias, El Desconcierto and Diario Financiero. The platforms were chosen based on their national coverage, their high circulation and accessibility without a subscription fee. The approach to retrieve the articles was as follows. First, tags directly related to climate change were identified: “climate change,” “global warming,” “climatic crisis,” and “climatic emergency.” This strategy allows for a systematization of sampling. For each article, the name of the media, tag, headline, date, and URL of the source page were retrieved using the Rvest ( Wickham, 2016 ) and RSelenium ( Harrison and Harrison, 2022 ) R-packages. The URLs were then used to extract the articles' full text (body). Those articles that were not retrievable using this method due to forbidden access or any other restrictions in the source page were discarded from the collection. A total of 6,056 news articles were retrieved between January 06 and 15, 2023. Because a news item may include different tags, we removed duplicate articles for each of the platforms. Articles in which the date could not be retrieved were also discarded. After this filtering process, we obtained 5024 articles, which were used to build the news media corpus ( Table 1 ).

Table 1 . Information of electronic platform and news media articles retrieved.

2.3. Preprocessing

The corpora were preprocessed as follows: performing tokenization into unigrams (one word) using the “tidytext” R-package ( Silge and Robinson, 2016 ), normalizing text into lowercase and removing punctuation, symbols, numbers, and HTML tags. English and Spanish lists of stop words were applied to the academic ( Puurula, 2013 ) and news media (a proposed list of Spanish stop-words was used; Díaz, 2016 ) corpus, respectively. Additional terms (e.g., academic corpus: “mission”, “b.v”, “rights”, “reserved”; news media corpus: “tags”, “u-uppercase”, “video”, “cnn”, “iphone”) were added to the list of stop words as frequent words present across many documents that are expected not to be related to any topic and whose presence might hinder the interpretation of the results. Also, plural words were converted to singular (e.g., academic corpus: “glaciers” to “glacier”, “southern” to “south”; news media corpus: “gases” to “gas”, “emissions” to “emission”). To preprocess the corpora, we used the “quanteda” R-package ( Benoit et al., 2018 ).

2.4. Publication trends

The Mann-Kendall trend test was used to detect an increase, decrease or no difference in the number of articles published for both academic and news media corpora. Mann-Kendall test is a distribution-free test that can be used to identify monotonic trends for as few as four samples ( Mann, 1945 ; Kendall, 1975 ). This is relevant for our purposes, given the results of our study were limited by a small sample size ( n = 10). In brief, we tested the null hypothesis if the data are identically distributed (i.e., non-trend). The alternative hypothesis was that the data follow a monotonic trend. This monotonic trend could be positive or negative. We fitted the Mann-Kendall model using the “Kendall” R-package ( McLeod and McLeod, 2015 ).

2.5. LDA topic modeling

Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a probabilistic topic-modeling technique, was used to identify the most common topics and themes in both corpora. Briefly, topic modeling is an unsupervised machine learning technique which can identify co-occurring terms and patterns from collections of text documents ( Kherwa and Bansal, 2019 ). Latent LDA is a well-suited unsupervised algorithm for general topic modeling tasks, particularly when dealing with long documents, which is the case with analyzing academic or news media articles ( Anupriya and Karpagavalli, 2015 ; Goyal and Kashyap, 2022 ). LDA is a three-level hierarchical Bayesian model that employs three basic elements, namely the corpus which is constituted from a set of documents that is composed from a group of words ( Blei et al., 2003 ; Blei, 2012 ). LDA can infer probabilistic word clusters, called topics, based on patterns of (co) occurrence of words in the documents that are analyzed. LDA models each document as a mixture of topics and the model generates automatic summaries of topics in terms of a discrete probability distribution over words for each topic, and further infers per-document discrete distributions over topic. LDA output can be used logically to classify the documents according to the topic it belongs to.

Before performing the LDA, the number of topics needs to be estimated. In this study, we used two metrics from the R-package “ldatuning” ( Nikita, 2016 ): CaoJuan2009 and Deveaud2014. Whereas measure CaoJuan2009 has to be minimized ( Cao et al., 2009 ), Deveaud2014 has to be maximized ( Deveaud et al., 2014 ). Both metrics showed a plateau in the curves at 9 and 13 topics (k) for both academic and news media corpora, respectively ( Figure 1 ). For each corpus, we fitted the LDA model using the “topicmodels” R-package ( Grün and Hornik, 2011 ). The collapsed Gibbs sampling method was used to estimate the LDA parameters with 1,000 iterations for k = 13 and k = 9 topics for academic and news media corpora, respectively). Once generated, we assigned a label that adds an interpretable meaning to each of the inferred topics. It is important to note that the news media corpus was analyzed in its original language (i.e., Spanish), but the results (i.e., topics and themes) are presented in English.

Figure 1 . Suggested number of topics in the (A) academic and (B) news media corpora using the CaoJuan2009 and Deveaud2014 metrics.

Lastly, we used a variation of Vu et al. (2019) and Keller et al. (2020) procedures to sort the topics into five overarching themes: climate change indicators (e.g., warming, temperature, glaciers, sea-level, oceans, coastal, weather, wildfires, drought, etc.); climate change impacts (e.g., water, food, agriculture, livestock, biodiversity, ecosystems, financial etc.); climate change and society (e.g., health, wellbeing, pollution, education, humanity, population, etc.); climate politics (e.g., government, law, policy, regulation, U.N., COP, agreement, etc.); and addressing climate change (e.g., adaptation, mitigation, action, renewable, GHG, emissions, fuel, management, etc.). Figure 2 summarizes the steps of data retrieval, corpus creation and content analysis.

Figure 2 . Data collection and analysis framework.

2.6. Visualizations

Data visualizations were performed using R ( R Core Team, 2022 ) in conjunction with the software package ggplot2 ( Wickham et al., 2016 ) and dplyr ( Wickham et al., 2022 ).

3.1. Publications trends over 2012–2022 period

National and international authors published 1,261 research academic articles related to climate change in Chile during the 2012–2022 period. More than half of these articles, approximately 66.0%, were published from 2019 onwards. In terms of news media, we retrieved 5,024 articles over the period 2012–2022. Of these articles, 76.6% were published in the past 4 years. Figure 3 shows trends in the number of articles for both the academic and news media corpus. Note that the scales of the y-axis are different between corpora. Mann-Kendall trend analysis showed a significant and upward trend for the number of academic articles (τ = 1, p < 0.01, Figure 3A ) and news media articles (τ = 0.85, p = < 0.05, Figure 3B ) articles. The number of articles published per year follows a similar trend in both corpora, however, news media articles showed a sharp increase in 2019. After these peaks, the number of published media articles decreased before an additional increase was observed.

Figure 3 . Annual trend of (A) academic and (B) news media articles published from 2012 to 2022.

3.2. LDA topic modeling

The output of the LDA for the academic and news media corpora are displayed in Table 2 . Topics were labeled based on the top 15 keywords with the largest probabilities in topics vectors ( Figures 4 , 5 ) and content in most relevant articles. In the academic corpus, the nine topics extracted were categorized into three overarching themes: “climate change indicators” (Topic A 2, A3 and A 4), “climate change impacts” (Topics A 7, A 8, and A 9), and “addressing climate change” (Topics A 1, A 5, and A 6). No topics in the academic corpus were classified as “climate change and society” or “climate politics”. The 13 topics extracted from news media corpus were classified in five themes: “climate change indicators” (Topic NM 1, NM 4, NM 7, and NM 9), “climate change impacts” (Topic NM 8 and NM 12), “addressing climate change” (Topics NM 5 and NM 13), “climate change and society” (Topics NM 2 and NM 11), and “climate politics” (Topics NM 6 and NM 10).

Table 2 . Themes, labels, and topics identified by LDA for academic ( n = 9) and news media ( n = 13) corpora.

Figure 4 . Word-topic probability from LDA model in the academic corpus.

Figure 5 . Word-topic probability from LDA model in the news media corpus.

4. Discussion

This study evaluates the extent of alignment between news media and academic research in their coverage of climate change topics in Chile between 2012 and 2022. By comparing two corpora consisting of 1,261 news articles and 5,024 academic articles, this research sheds light on the similarities, discrepancies, and gaps in the coverage of climate change in Chilean academic and general-interest publications. Our analysis revealed three key findings. Firstly, the number of articles on climate change has increased substantially over the past decade, reflecting a growing interest and urgency surrounding the issue. Secondly, while both news media and academic research cover similar themes, such as climate change indicators, climate change impacts and mitigation and adaptation strategies, the news media provides a wider variety of themes, including climate change and society and climate politics, which are not as commonly explored in academic research. Thirdly, academic literature offers in-depth insights into the ecological consequences of global warming on coastal ecosystems and their inhabitants. In contrast, press media tends to prioritize the tangible and direct impacts, particularly on agriculture and urban health. These disparities not only underscore the differing emphases between news media and academic coverage but also illustrate how news media predominantly focuses on the immediate and visible impacts of climate change events.

4.1. Publications trends over 2012–2022 period

Our study explores the coverage of climate change in Chile by news media and research academia during the 2012–2022 period. We found a significant increase in the number of academic and news media articles published on climate change in Chile over the past decade, indicating growing interest and urgency surrounding the issue ( Figure 3 ). The rise in Chilean literature suggests an increased interest by the scientific community in understanding climate change in Chile, which is crucial for understanding global environmental changes and their impacts on natural, social, political, and economic systems. Our findings are consistent with previous studies that have mapped the evolution of climate change science worldwide ( Klingelhöfer et al., 2020 ; Nalau and Verrall, 2021 ; Reisch et al., 2021 ; Rocque et al., 2021 ). The media coverage of climate change in Chile also increased significantly since 2012, reaching a peak during 2019 before decreasing sharply in 2020 and increasing again thereafter. In 2019, the peak coincided with the climate summit (COP 25) held by Chile, generating great interest among civil society, scientists, and the private sector to share their plans for mitigating and adapting to climate change ( Hjerpe and Linnér, 2010 ). This event occurred at the same time as the #FridaysForFuture campaign, which mobilized an unprecedented number of youths worldwide to join the climate movement, including Chile ( Fisher, 2019 ). The campaign was instrumental not only for its potential impact on policy but also for raising public awareness about climate change and promoting action to address it. However, the media landscape experienced a notable shift in priorities due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic brought about unprecedented challenges and uncertainties, leading to changes in media coverage patterns and public attention. News media had to allocate significant resources to reporting on the pandemic, including public health information, policy responses, and updates on the spread of the virus ( Krawczyk et al., 2021 ; Mach et al., 2021 ). This shift in media priorities affected the extent and prominence of climate change coverage. Consequently, the media coverage of climate change in Chile experienced a temporary decline in 2020. However, as the world gradually adapted to the ongoing pandemic, news media resumed their coverage of climate change, and the topic regained attention. Additionally, the upcoming international conferences, such as COP 26 in England (2021) and COP 27 in Egypt (2022), may have contributed to the increased media coverage observed since 2021, as these events serve as key moments to discuss global climate action.

4.2. LDA topic modeling

Using LDA topic analysis, we found that both academic and news media articles covered three of the five evaluated themes—“climate change indicators”, “climate change impacts”, and “addressing climate change”—as shown in Table 2 and Figures 4 , 5 . The themes “climate change and society” and “climate politics” were covered by news media but has been relatively underexplored in academic research.

4.2.1. Climate change indicators

Both corpora shared a common focus on droughts and precipitations as key climate change indicators. Academic studies covered extreme precipitation and drought (Topic A 2), as well as precipitation patterns in the Andean region (Topic A 4). Similarly, news media concentrated on drought and precipitation patterns in central Chile (Topic NM 9). Research by Chilean scientists shows that since 2010, the country has witnessed a significant increase in drought intensity and frequency, accompanied by a sharp reduction in precipitation ( Garreaud et al., 2020 ; González-Reyes et al., 2023 ). The resulting prolonged drought has caused acute water stress, food insecurity, loss of livelihoods, and severe biodiversity impacts, particularly in the central region. The shared focus reflects the concern for the tangible and urgent impacts of the mega-drought experienced by Chile over the last decade ( De la Barrera et al., 2018 ; Sarricolea et al., 2020 ; Alvarez-Garreton et al., 2021 ). Thus, the alignment in attention to these issues highlights the pressing nature of the topic in Chile's context.

Moreover, the academic corpus focuses on climate change scenarios scenarios (Topic A 3) related to precipitation patterns. This indicates a strong emphasis on understanding the potential impacts of climate change on rainfall patterns and hydrological systems. On the other hand, the news media corpus predominantly focuses on indicators and trends (Topic NM 1) related to financial aspects, such as countries' expenditures, economic programs over the last decade, and historical perspectives on the planet. Although the focus of the two corpora differs in terms of temporal perspective, both share the overarching objective of understanding climate change and its indicators. The academic corpus with its emphasis on scenarios offers valuable insights into long-term projections and the potential consequences of climate change. Meanwhile, the news media corpus, with its focus on indicators and trends, serves to inform the public about the immediate impacts of climate change. By examining these complementary approaches, a more holistic understanding of climate change and its multifaceted nature can be obtained, incorporating both long-term projections and current reality.

Interestingly, news media coverage of climate change impacts extends beyond droughts and precipitation scenarios, encompassing a wide range of issues such as melting ice, sea-level rise, urban flooding, heatwaves, and fires, which have become particularly problematic in Chile and other countries, notably Europe (Topic NM 4 and 7). Heatwaves have been increasingly frequent and intense, resulting in record-breaking high temperatures across, Chile ( Piticar, 2018 ; Suli et al., 2023 ), Europe ( Xu et al., 2020 ; Becker et al., 2022 ; Lhotka and Kyselý, 2022 ) and worldwide. These episodes result in elevated mortality rates, particularly among vulnerable populations, and the amplification of other health-related risks ( An der Heiden et al., 2020 ; Błazejczyk et al., 2022 ). Fires, fueled by warmer and drier conditions, have also received considerable attention in news media. The incidence of wildfires has risen substantially, causing significant ecological damage, property destruction, and threats to human wellbeing ( Wong-Parodi, 2020 ; Hertelendy et al., 2021 ). Fires have been a significant concern in Chile between 2015 and 2022, accounting for 36% of the total burnt area from 1985 to 2022 ( Ruffault et al., 2018 ; CONAF, 2022 ; Varga et al., 2022 ). These fires have resulted in the destruction of thousands of hectares of land, vital ecosystems, and significant air pollution, all of which have adverse effects on human health. This broader coverage aligns with academic research findings that emphasize the devastating effects of climate change events on the environment, local communities, economy, welfare, and health in Chile and elsewhere ( Piticar, 2018 ; Suli et al., 2023 ). The news media serves a pivotal role in disseminating information about these climate change impacts, effectively highlighting their far-reaching consequences. Furthermore, these examples shed light on the differing emphases between news media and academic coverage, with news media giving considerable attention to the immediate and visible impacts of climate change events. This approach serves to raise awareness and engage the public in comprehending and addressing these pressing challenges.

4.2.2. Climate change impacts

The analysis reveals that academic literature predominantly concentrates on the impacts of global warming on coastal organisms (Topics A 9). Similarly, the population response of coastal species is a major research focus within academia, examining the implications of climate change on species' survival, reproductive success, and migration patterns (Topics A 7). Changes in oceans, such as temperature increase, sea level rise, and acidification, have had wide-ranging biological implications ( Dewitte et al., 2021 ; Navarrete et al., 2022 ), and recent studies have shown that marine organisms can adapt or acclimate to these changes ( Navarro et al., 2016 ; Ramajo et al., 2019 ; Fernandez et al., 2021 ; Lardies et al., 2021 ; Vargas et al., 2022 ). For instance, Navarro et al. (2020) examined the effects of ocean warming and acidification on juvenile Chilean oysters ( Ostrea chilensis ), inhabiting coastal and estuarine areas of the mid to high latitudes of southern Chile. Silva et al. (2016) investigated the impacts of projected sea surface temperature on habitat suitability and geographic distribution of anchovy ( Engraulis ringens ) due to climate change in the coastal areas off Chile, an important commercial fishery resource in Chile. Most of these species are commercially important and provide food and livelihoods for local communities. The future impacts of climate change on marine biodiversity in Chile are uncertain but could be severe if current trends persist ( Du Pontavice et al., 2020 ). Additionally, a considerable amount of academic research revolves around environmental impact and risk assessment (Topics A 9), which reflects the growing concern over the susceptibility of human and natural systems to climate change impacts in Chile. Vulnerability and risk assessment can help identify populations, regions, and sectors that are most susceptible to the current and future impacts of climate change ( Urquiza et al., 2021 ). Addressing these vulnerabilities can inform decision-making processes and support the development of effective policies and adaptation strategies ( Gandini et al., 2021 ; Simpson et al., 2021 ).

In contrast, news media predominantly highlights the significant impacts of climate change on Chilean agriculture and ecosystem services (Topic NM 8) ( Fernández et al., 2019 ). Extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and droughts, have resulted in significant alterations in the timing and quantity of rainfall. These changes, in turn, have led to notable shifts in soil moisture levels and water availability for crop cultivation. These events have also impacted soil fertility, crop yields, and farm infrastructure, as well as pollination services provided by insects, such as bees, which are critical for fruit and vegetable production ( Gajardo-Rojas et al., 2022 ). By emphasizing this interconnectedness, news media can help people understand the significant economic, social, and food security impacts of climate change on the country's agricultural sector ( Muluneh, 2021 ). Furthermore, news articles often focus on the health impacts of climate change on urban populations (Topic NM 12), such as the increased prevalence of heat-related illnesses, air pollution-related respiratory diseases, and the spread of vector-borne diseases in cities ( Bell et al., 2008 ; Oyarzún et al., 2021 ).

These disparities between academic literature and news media highlight the communication gap between scientific research and mainstream discourse on climate change impacts in Chile. While academia provides detailed insights into the ecological consequences of global warming on coastal ecosystems and their inhabitants, the news media places more emphasis on tangible and direct impacts, such as those on agriculture and urban health. Bridging this gap between academia and news media is crucial for enhancing public awareness and understanding of the comprehensive range of climate change impacts, ultimately supporting informed decision-making and sustainable action in response to this urgent global issue.

4.2.3. Adressing climate change

An alignment between academic literature and news media can be observed in their shared focus on adaptation efforts and mitigation strategies. Academic literature extensively examines the role of mitigation and adaptation in the energy sector (Topic A 1), emphasizing the importance of diversifying energy sources, developing and implementing renewable energy sources, and energy efficiency to reduce GHG emissions and provide cost-effective mitigation and adaptation benefits to households and businesses ( Nasirov et al., 2019 ; Pamparana et al., 2019 ; Kairies-Alvarado et al., 2021 ; Martinez-Soto et al., 2021 ; Raihan, 2023 ). This aligns with the coverage in news media, which highlights the transition toward low carbon energy systems (Topic NM 5), reflecting policy agendas in many countries, including Chile, where the energy sector is the largest contributor to GHG emissions ( Álamos et al., 2022 ; Labarca et al., 2023 ). The transition to a more sustainable energy system in Chile has been promoted through the implementation of renewable energy production and energy efficiency ( Simsek et al., 2019 , 2020 ; Babonneau et al., 2021 ; Osorio-Aravena et al., 2021 ; Ferrada et al., 2022 ). These findings are in line with those of Lyytimäki (2018) , who found that news media created a highly positive narrative of renewable energies as an environmentally friendly solution to GHG emissions.

However, disparities between academic literature and news media coverage are apparent. While both sources recognize the significance of these measures, academic literature provides more comprehensive coverage than news media. Academic literature places significant emphasis on forest carbon management, acknowledging the crucial role of forests in carbon sequestration (Topic A 5), and climate change mitigation. This involves implementing forest conservation, reforestation, and afforestation practices to increase carbon sequestration in forest biomass and soil, thereby reducing GHG emissions Additionally, academic literature extensively addresses agriculture-water management (Topic A 6), emphasizing the importance of sustainable agricultural practices and efficient water resource management in response to changing climate conditions. Relevant mitigation and adaptation strategies for agriculture, such as improving water use efficiency, adopting irrigation technologies, and modifying crop choices, have been identified in academic research ( Novoa et al., 2019 ; Jordán and Speelman, 2020 ; Zúñiga et al., 2021 ). In contrast, news media coverage is more limited in these areas, focusing more narrowly on the transition toward low carbon energy systems (Topic NM 5), and general adaptation efforts and mitigation strategies (Topic NM 13). Despite this, news media plays a vital role in climate change communication by highlighting various actions that can be taken to effectively mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, which can help promote the adoption of sustainable solutions.

4.2.4. Climate change and society

Our analysis reveals an interesting pattern: the theme of “climate change and society” is covered by news media but has been relatively underexplored in academic research. In news media coverage, the theme of society and sustainable development (Topic NM 2) takes center stage, focusing on dimensions such as economy, technology, social, and environment. Additionally, news media pays significant attention to climate action (Topic NM 11), exemplified by movements like “Fridays for Future” and speeches by climate activist Greta Thunberg during international climate conferences such as COP.

This media coverage plays a vital role in highlighting contingent events and showcasing the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on people's daily lives on both local and global scales. However, it is notable that the theme of “climate change and society” lacks adequate representation in the scientific literature.

Understanding the societal implications of climate change is of paramount importance for all stakeholders, including policymakers, civil society organizations, and individuals. The scientific exploration of this topic can provide valuable insights into effective and equitable adaptation and mitigation strategies. Consequently, there is a pressing need to develop further research on this topic, bridging the gap between news media coverage and scientific inquiry. By expanding our understanding of the societal dimensions of climate change in the academic literature, we can better inform evidence-based decision-making, foster collective action, and ultimately contribute to a more sustainable future.

4.2.5. Climate politics

Climate politics is another topic covered by news media underexplored in academic. This theme has included topics such international conferences and commitments (Topic NM 3), IPCC Reports (Topic NM 6) and Chilean climate change framework law (Topic NM 10). The Climate Change Framework Law, is a recent important policy instrument for addressing climate change, as it aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change ( Madariaga Gómez de Cuenca, 2021 ). The IPCC report, on the other hand, is a crucial scientific report that provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of knowledge on climate change, its causes, impacts, and future risks ( Pörtner et al., 2019 ). IPCC report coverage in the news media is vital for the understanding of climate change in Chile and worldwide, as they inform the public about the latest developments in climate policy and the scientific understanding of climate change. The coverage of these topics in the news media is important for society's understanding of climate change, both in Chile and worldwide, as it highlights the importance of political will and action in tackling climate change at local, national, and global levels. The relatively low coverage of these themes in academic research, however, suggests the need for more interdisciplinary research on the social and political dimensions of climate change.

4.3. Analyzing news media and academic research

Our study focused on assessing the alignment between climate change coverage in news media and academic research in Chile, revealing significant gaps in the framing of climate change between these two domains. Academic research and media coverage of climate change often focus on different aspects and utilize distinct methodologies. Academic sources offer rigorous scientific investigations, providing in-depth analysis and evidence-based insights into the complexities of climate change ( Cook, 2019 ; Farrell et al., 2019 ; Masson-Delmotte et al., 2021 ). In contrast, media sources serve as a bridge between scientific findings and public understanding, shaping public opinion and influencing societal actions ( Boykoff, 2009 ; Drews and Van den Bergh, 2016 ; Boykoff and Luedecke, 2017 ; Stecula and Merkley, 2019 ; Merkley, 2020 ; McAllister et al., 2021 ; Okoliko and de Wit, 2023 ). The complementary nature of academic and media sources allows for a more comprehensive communication and understanding of climate change ( Goldstein et al., 2020 ; Lewandowsky, 2021 ). Through analyzing both academic and media sources, discrepancies and gaps in climate change coverage can be identified, uncovering biases and insufficient attention to certain aspects. This analysis significantly enhances public understanding by facilitating the development of targeted communication strategies that bridge these gaps, ultimately promoting informed public debates and driving effective actions. However, it is crucial to recognize that the level of media influence on public opinion depends on the level of audience engagement with climate change discourse ( Wonneberger et al., 2020 ). Consequently, aligning academic and media coverage becomes even more essential as it enables a more accurate and balanced portrayal of climate change, thereby facilitating the implementation of necessary policies and practices to address this pressing global concern. Our findings have important implications for future research and climate communication in Chile, suggesting the need for increased attention to the challenging dimensions of climate change, such as the social dynamics and political factors associated with this global issue.

4.4. Limitations

This study has several limitations that should be taken into account when interpreting the findings. Firstly, the academic corpus only included articles published in English, while the news media corpus only included articles published in Spanish. As a result, topics' keywords had to be translated into English for comparison between corpora, which could have an effect on the results. Secondly, we selected eight Chilean electronic news media sources with high readership and free accessibility without subscription fees; however, future studies should consider including other paid subscription news media as well. Thirdly, our research does not take into account other mass media platforms that can provide information about climate change ( Tandoc and Eng, 2017 ; Becken et al., 2022 ). Future research could explore this topic further. Lastly, this study analyzed two corpora inherently different in terms of their coverage; news media tends to cover climate change from an international perspective, while academia focuses on a more local or regional level. These limitations do not diminish the significance of our findings. Our study highlights the need for better communication and dissemination of scientific findings to the general public. The findings of this study are not only relevant to Chile but also have global implications in addressing the pressing issue of climate change. It is crucial to bridge the gap between academic research and news media coverage to promote effective solutions for tackling this issue.

5. Conclusion

Through the application of text-mining, web-scraping methods, and topic-modeling techniques to an academic and news media corpus, this study has yielded valuable insights into the similarities, discrepancies, and gaps in the coverage of climate change in Chilean academic and general-interest publications. By identifying and analyzing these patterns, our research contributes to a deeper understanding of climate change coverage in Chile, providing relevant evidence that bridges the communication gap between scientific research and mainstream discourse. The integration of academic and media sources in this study has revealed their complementary nature, facilitating a more comprehensive communication and understanding of climate change. This interdisciplinary approach expands our perspective, allowing us to appreciate the multifaceted aspects associated with climate change more holistically. This study underscores the importance of considering both academic and media sources when addressing climate change. By combining the rigorous analysis of scientific research with the broader reach of media coverage, it's possible to promote a more informed and engaged public discourse on climate change.

Data availability statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/ Supplementary material , further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author contributions

PC and RQ contributed to conception and design of the study. PC organized the database, retrieved the information, performed the analysis, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to manuscript revision, read, and approved the submitted version.

Acknowledgments

We thank to Dr. Christos Joannides, Fredy Núñez, and Manuel Valenzuela for their feedback on previous versions of this manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1226432/full#supplementary-material

Supplementary Table 1. Academic and news media corpora analyzed in this study.

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Keywords: climate change, academic research, news media, LDA topic modeling, text-mining, web-scrapping, Chile

Citation: Cortés PA and Quiroga R (2023) How academic research and news media cover climate change: a case study from Chile. Front. Commun. 8:1226432. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2023.1226432

Received: 21 May 2023; Accepted: 31 July 2023; Published: 17 August 2023.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2023 Cortés and Quiroga. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Pablo A. Cortés, pablocortesgarcia@gmail.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Social media messaging by climate action NGOs: a case study of the 2019–2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires

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Joshua Ettinger, Mary Sanford, Peter Walton, David Holmes, James Painter, Social media messaging by climate action NGOs: a case study of the 2019–2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires, Oxford Open Climate Change , Volume 3, Issue 1, 2023, kgad011, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgad011

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Researchers are increasingly examining discourses associated with climate change and extreme weather events across different communication channels. However, further research is needed to examine how environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) frame extreme weather events and their relationship to climate change on social media platforms. This is an important topic as these groups play a significant role communicating science and driving environmental action. Here, we examine how Australian climate action NGOs framed the relationship of the 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires to climate change on Twitter/X. Analyzing 2,077 bushfire-related tweets from a sample of 102 climate group accounts through manual content analysis, we found that these groups frequently linked bushfires with climate change, representing 59% of their bushfire-related tweets during the period of the fires. Forty-two percent of tweets mentioned climate change without describing how it relates to bushfires; 16% described specifically how climate change influences the frequency and intensity of bushfires; and only 1% suggested inaccurately that climate change causes bushfires to occur. Fifteen percent of tweets discussed risk factors beyond climate change that influence bushfire impacts, such as firefighting, emergency responses, hazard reduction, and community vulnerabilities. Only seven accounts mentioned an extreme event attribution study of the Black Summer fires. Based on these findings, we discuss opportunities and challenges of climate science communication in the extreme weather context, and describe promising directions for future research.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a significant role communicating climate change and mobilizing climate action. This study explores how Australian climate action NGOs communicated about climate change on Twitter during the 2019–2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires. This is an important topic for research as there are nuances around how climate change relates to extreme weather events. Climate change makes bushfires more frequent and intense, but it does not directly cause bushfires to occur. Additionally, risks from bushfires do not only result from climate change—firefighting, landscape dynamics, emergency communications, evacuation procedures, and other types of responses shape the impacts of these events. The NGOs we examined overall did not inaccurately claim that climate change causes bushfires (only 1% of total tweets). However, only 15% of the tweets mentioned non-climate change factors (such as firefighting) that shape bushfire risks. Fourty-two percent of tweets mentioned climate change but did not explain how it relates to bushfires. Based on these findings, we discuss opportunities, challenges, and ongoing questions around climate science communication in the extreme weather context.

Climate change is altering the frequency, duration, and intensity of many kinds of extreme weather events around the world [ 1 ]. Higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere lead to more frequent and more intense heatwaves, heavy rainfall events, and fire weather conditions, among impacts on other types of weather. Extreme event attribution (EEA) techniques allow climate scientists to go beyond describing how climate change affects types of extreme weather to assess how climate change affects the frequency and/or intensity of specific extreme weather events [ 2 ]. For example, researchers found that climate change increased the likelihood of a heatwave like the November/December 2022 event in South America by about 60 times [ 3 ]. At the same time, not every extreme weather event is necessarily affected by climate change. For example, researchers found that the potential influence of climate change on the 2021 drought in Madagascar was negligible compared to natural variability—poverty and strong reliance on rainfall were the key factors that caused food insecurity associated with the drought [ 4 ].

As scientists continue to assess how climate change alters extreme weather, environmental communication scholars are increasingly examining discourses associated with these events across different communication channels. A growing body of literature has assessed to what extent and how weather events are linked to climate change in news media. In general, journalists are increasingly connecting extreme weather events to climate change and offering more coverage to climate change in general [ 5 , 6 ]. For instance, Hopke (2020) found a growing number of climate change mentions in articles about heatwaves and wildfires from 2013–2018 across several countries [ 7 ]. Media coverage of the 2022 summer heatwave in the United Kingdom included significant discussion of climate change, which was often situated in the context of politics and climate policies [ 8 ].

There have also been analyses of climate change and extreme weather discourses on social media platforms. Examining social media is an important area for climate change communication research as these platforms (such as Facebook, Reddit, TikTok, and Twitter/X) are key spaces for climate change contestation, discussion, mobilization, and science communication [ 9 , 10 ]. Social media discourse can differ significantly from news media coverage of the same topics [ 11 ]. Social media platforms are also a major news source, especially for young people [ 12 ]. Researchers have shown that the occurrence of extreme weather events is associated with an increase in social media posts that mention climate change [ 13 , 14 ], with different kinds of weather events generating varying amounts of attention to climate change [ 15–17 ]. For instance, Olynk Widmar et al . (2022) found that posts about hurricanes mentioned climate change less often than wildfires [ 18 ]. Other analyses have examined the roles of social media for emergency communication, disaster response, and relief coordination during extreme events [ 19–23 ].

Framing climate change and extreme weather relationships

Amid increasing attention to the relationship between climate change and extreme weather events, some researchers have cautioned that a sole focus on climate change could displace attention from the roles of vulnerability, adaptation, exposure, and disaster risk reduction strategies in shaping risks from hazards [ 24–26 ]. As described in the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C, ‘Risk results from the interaction of vulnerability (of the affected system), its exposure over time (to the hazard), as well as the (climate-related) hazard and the likelihood of its occurrence’ [ 27 , p. 557]. Put simply, while climate change can affect meteorological aspects of extreme weather events, how well communities and governments prepare for these events ultimately determines if hazards become disasters [ 28 ].

Likewise, the phrase ‘natural disaster’ is problematic as it implies that the impacts of extreme weather events are purely due to meteorological aspects [ 29 ]. Policymakers can exploit this idea to divert attention from local planning decisions and failures [ 26 ]. Understanding and communicating the connections of climate change to extreme weather events remains crucially important; however, focusing entirely on climate change could sideline ‘local ways of reducing vulnerability to extreme weather and … end up absolving policymakers of their own failures to climate-proof their citizens’ [ 30 , p. 1]. A key point is the interconnectedness of risk dimensions [ 31 ]. Climate change, in combination with changing levels of exposure and vulnerability, has increased costs associated with many weather-related disasters around the world for several decades [ 32 ]. Perceptions of these risk factors can also differ among citizens in the Global North and Global South [ 33 ].

The concept of framing offers a helpful theoretical lens to explore different ways that communications about extreme weather events can focus on climate change, vulnerability, exposure, disaster risk reduction strategies, or other risk aspects. Framing refers to the act of emphasizing certain salient characteristics while neglecting others when describing any phenomena [ 34 , 35 ]. Experimental studies have shown that contrasting climate change frames can generate different audience responses, including a range of climate attitudes, emotions, and behavioral intentions [ 36–38 ]. How communicators frame the risks of extreme weather events, their underlying causality, and their impacts makes certain types of solutions more applicable (i.e. climate mitigation versus disaster risk reduction strategies) and assigns blame to different actors.

The framing of extreme weather events is particularly relevant because when they occur, they are often described as focusing events or teachable moments to reduce risks from such events in the future [ 39 ]. The motivation to conduct this study was partly informed by our prior research in which we presented non-climate scientists in the UK with results of an EEA study showing how climate change affected the 2019 United Kingdom summer heatwave [ 40 ]. We found that EEA was overall an attention grabbing and helpful climate change communication tool. However, when asked about actions to reduce future heatwave risks, participants only discussed climate mitigation, rather than a range of other adaptative strategies to reduce risks. Framing the event only in terms of climate change primed participants to only discuss climate change mitigation as the way to reduce risks. This is one example of how the ways in which communicators frame extreme weather events may influence subsequent learning—in other words, what an event ‘teaches’ and to whom.

Environmental NGOs as climate change communicators

In analyzing discourse around extreme weather events and associated disasters, it is important to distinguish between different kinds of actors and communication channels. Compared to news media analyses, there has been less examination of how environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engage with and communicate about extreme weather events. This topic merits further research as NGOs play a significant role in driving environmental action [ 41 ]. They also act as ‘alternative science communicators’, increasing societal awareness of scientific research and utilizing this information to advocate for their causes [ 42–45 ]. In doing so, they broaden discourse around scientific evidence to connect knowledge with political action [ 46 ]. As described by Eden (2010, p. 224), NGOs ‘widen the circulation of information and ideas about policy, ethics and practical application in order to mobilize other actors and publics, raise awareness and encourage purposeful scientific input to key debates’ [ 47 ].

Researchers have previously examined how NGOs use social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as part of their campaign strategies [ 48–50 ]. Bazago et al . (2020) examined tweets from environmental NGOs during hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria that occurred in 2017 in the United States [ 51 ]. They found that climate change was frequently mentioned, often in association with critiques of political figures. Vu et al . (2020) examined how environmental NGOs frame climate change in their communications on Facebook, finding that posts focused more on climate change problems than climate solutions [ 52 ]. To our knowledge, there have not been studies specifically examining how these groups frame the relationship between extreme weather events and climate change on social media platforms. In contrast to a growing number of studies examining EEA coverage in news media [ 53 , 54 ], there is also yet to be research examining the prevalence of EEA studies being shared by these (and other) actors on social media.

Case study: the 2019–2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires

This study advances our understanding of extreme weather and climate change NGO discourses through an analysis of how Australian climate groups communicated on Twitter/X during the 2019–2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires. Although fires are an inherent feature of the Australian landscape, the 2019–2020 bushfire season involved a series of unusually intense bushfires that severely affected all Australian states and territories, especially eastern Australia [ 55 ]. Over 30 people were killed as a direct result of the fires and an estimated 429 more people died due to smoke exposure, along with thousands of buildings destroyed and over 30 million hectares of land burnt [ 56–58 ]. The fires led to billions of dollars of damage and affected billions of animals [ 59–61 ]. They also disproportionately affected socio-economically disadvantaged communities [ 62 ]. The most significant fires occurred from the beginning of September 2019 to the end of January 2020, which is part of a trend of longer bushfire seasons [ 63 ].

The fires received substantial global news coverage, especially at key moments during the season such as when smoke blanketed Sydney [ 64 ], when Victoria declared catastrophic levels of fire weather [ 65 ], and when citizens of Mallacoota, Victoria, evacuated to beaches on New Year’s Eve, generating dramatic photos and videos [ 66 ]. Burgess et al . (2020) analyzed Australian news coverage of the Black Summer and found that about 50% of articles mentioned climate change, compared to only 5% of articles about the 2009 Black Saturday fires; 29% of articles included in-depth discussion of climate change; and 10% of articles described failures to adequately plan for the fires [ 67 ]. Different Australian news outlets pushed contesting narratives about the connection (or not) of climate change to the fires [ 67 , 68 ].

The fires also received significant attention on social media. Weber et al . (2020) examined the spread of misinformation on Twitter that arson caused the Black Summer fires, revealing polarization of different online communities that sought to either propagate or debunk these claims [ 69 ]. Ogie et al . (2022) examined disaster recovery on Twitter during and after the Black Summer fires, finding that different types of Twitter users (e.g. citizens, governments, NGOs) discussed various aspects of bushfire recovery at different periods, such as rebuilding infrastructure, supporting mental health, and filing insurance claims [ 70 ]. Users also discussed the impacts of the fires on biodiversity [ 71 ].

Although climate change does not directly cause fires, it is making fire weather—the conditions in which fires begin and spread—more frequent and more intense in many regions across the world [ 63 , 72 ]. Climate change amplified the Black Summer fires: they happened after three consecutive years of drought and dry winters [ 73 ], and occurred during Australia’s hottest and driest year on record [ 55 ]. An EEA analysis found that climate change made the fire weather conditions like those that occurred during the Black Summer at least 30% more likely (initially published on the World Weather Attribution on 10 January 2020 and later as a peer-reviewed study [ 74 ]).

Beyond climate change, the Black Summer exposed a variety of ways in which Australia could have more effectively averted the harmful impacts of the fires. As Chester (2020, p. 245) describes, ‘the scale and catastrophic impact of these bushfires were caused—and exacerbated—by a conjunction of cumulative events, (in)actions, and institutions’ [ 24 ]. This includes under-resourced firefighters, most of whom are volunteers [ 75 ]; a lack of preparation of the Australian healthcare system [ 76 ]; long-term land-management decisions, such as insufficient hazard reduction through planned and cultural burns (practiced by Indigenous Australian Peoples), although scientists debate the impact of fuel loads on the fires [ 77–79 ]; insufficient early warning and emergency communication systems; ecological dynamics such as the dominance of highly flammable eucalyptus trees [ 80 ]; and, as some have argued, a failure to implement lessons from prior governmental bushfire inquiries [ 81 ], among other factors. The Australian government’s 2020 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements offers an array of recommendations based on a review of the Black Summer fires, including improving government emergency mobilization, enhancing air quality monitoring, increasing climate change adaptation and mitigation, providing additional firefighting resources and support, and improving emergency communication systems [ 59 ].

Research questions

The Black Summer demonstrates how a combination of climate change, along with planning decisions at federal, state, and local levels, can shape the impacts of bushfires. These dynamics, as well as the significant amount of attention the fires generated, make the Black Summer a highly topical case study to analyze how climate action NGOs framed the event in their social media communications. Three research questions structure our analysis.

RQ1. How did Australian climate action NGOs frame the relationship between bushfires and climate change in their tweets during the Black Summer bushfires?

RQ2. To what extent did Australian climate groups share on Twitter the results of the van Oldenborgh et al. (2021) extreme event attribution study of the Black Summer bushfires?

RQ3. To what extent did Australian climate groups mention non-climate change factors, such as disaster risk reduction, emergency responses, firefighting, and vulnerability, in shaping bushfire risks in their tweets during the Black Summer bushfires?

To answer our research questions, we first identified climate action groups that met the following criteria: (i) is based in Australia; (ii) is a non-governmental organization that has addressing climate change as part of its core mission; and (iii) has a Twitter account. We used Climate Action Network Australia—the largest available online list of Australia-based climate advocacy groups—to create our initial sample [ 82 ]. The list contained 149 organizations in November 2022 when the sample was created. It included organizations of a large diversity of sizes located around the country; community, regional, national, and Australia-based offices of international groups; as well as groups representing diverse cultural backgrounds, such as First Nations Indigenous Australian Peoples and various religious affiliations. We then removed all groups that did not have a Twitter account, which narrowed the sample to 102 groups (see Supplementary Materials for list). For simplicity, we use the terms NGO and climate action groups interchangeably, although we acknowledge that there are a wide variety of different kinds of groups, including significant differences between local, grassroots community associations versus international organizations, and that groups may have different aims, approaches, and methods (e.g. policy engagement, litigation, protests, etc.). A detailed overview of Australian climate action groups is beyond the scope of this paper, but we refer readers to Gulliver et al . (2020) for further information [ 83 ].

Using the Twitter API, we collected all posts from these accounts from 1 July 2019 to 31 March 2020, which are the dates used by the Australian government’s Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements [ 59 ]. We analyzed tweets during the period of the fires as a reflection of how the occurrence of these events provides an opportunity window for climate change communication while they remain matters of public attention. The API returned 49,229 tweets, retweets, and comments. Only original tweets were kept (rather than retweets or comments) as we sought to uncover how organizations themselves framed the relationship between bushfires and climate change, rather than reposts of content written by others. The only exception to this was for RQ2, for which we included retweets given significant news coverage about the Black Summer EEA study and the possibility that groups might retweet these articles, rather than writing new tweets about the study.

All tweets that did not mention terms such as ‘fire’, ‘Black Summer’, ‘burn’, and other related phrases were removed (see Supplementary Materials for full query list). In total, 2,507 tweets from 59 of the 102 accounts remained. This list was then manually checked to remove false positives irrelevant to the topic of bushfires, such as those that mentioned fires happening elsewhere in the world. This resulted in a final dataset of 2,077 tweets. Two of the co-authors manually coded these tweets following deductive content analysis informed by the research questions [ 84 ]. Although we did not conduct a visual discourse analysis, we checked visual imagery associated with tweets for any images containing text or symbols associated with the coding criteria (e.g. protestors holding signs that said ‘climate action now’). This helped ensure we did not miss important context on tweets that relied more on visuals than text to express their messages. Please see the Supplementary Materials for the codebook and further methodological details.

We used a manual coding approach as it helped facilitate a fine-grained discourse analysis to assess subtle nuances in the framing of extreme weather events and climate change. We conducted two rounds of intercoder reliability checks between the two coders on 25 random tweets from the dataset, with differences discussed between rounds. This ultimately resulted in reliability scores of 0.920 for Cohen's kappa and 0.921 for Krippendorff’s alpha, which represent strong agreement. The full analysis then commenced. At a reflexive level, we acknowledge our own researcher subjectivity in interpreting frames, as well as inherent power dynamics assessing the communications of others who may not have benefitted from the same level of access to environmental education, resources, and training.

Framing the bushfire and climate change relationship

During the Black Summer bushfire season, our sample of Australian climate action group accounts tweeted a total of 2,077 times about bushfires (excluding retweets and comments). Mentions of bushfires corresponded closely with the bushfire season as the fires ramp up over time, with peaks during significant fire events, and begin to taper off as the season ends ( Fig. 1 ).

Timeline and frequency of NGO tweets about bushfires ( n  = 2077), which correspond with significant fire events during the Black Summer season (1 July 2019–31 March 2020). Three examples of these events are indicated.

Catastrophic bushfires across South Australia as the state swelters through 40+ degrees—this is climate change. This is the impact of mining and burning fossil fuels. This summer's devastating bushfires have made the #ClimateCrisis impossible to ignore for millions of people. Join us at the Climate Crisis National Day of Action event in Melbourne! See you there Sat Feb 22, 2pm State Library. September: thousands of students strike for climate action. November: 600 NSW schools closed due to catastrophic fire risk. #ClimateChangeIsReal

Bar chart showing frequency of tweets (excluding retweets and comments) for three different frames describing how climate change relates to bushfires ( n  = 1,227).

Thousands of people are watching their homes burn as dangerous bushfires race across NSW and QLD, and our government are still failing to acknowledge the direct link between the climate crisis and more extreme bushfires and drought. Victoria’s climate has changed in recent decades, becoming hotter and drier. an overall increase in the frequency of unusually hot days a decline in cool season rainfall over the last 30 years. greater number of very high fire danger days in spring @BOM_au reports Australia has officially recorded its warmest, driest year on record‚ and the outlook points to increased catastrophic fire weather. #AustraliaFires #AustraliaisBurning #ActOnClimate

This isn't normal. Bushfires rage from QLD to the NSW South Coast‚ again. Meanwhile, the Morrison Gov is gripped by denial. Their inability to acknowledge the cause of fires subjects communities to more suffering. To save lives, we need climate action now. #bushfires A lesson for @ScottMorrisonMP. Saying that Australia's action doesn't make a difference isn't leadership. Burning coal is setting Australian on fire and exporting climate damage to the world. #ThisIsNotNormal #NoNewCoal A group of Bega Valley residents displaced due to the current fire threat have held a cricket match on the lawns of Parliament House. ‘The PM needs to do something about the cause of fires—climate change, give more resources to the South Coast’

Black Summer extreme event attribution study

The devastating bushfires were at least 30% more likely because of climate change. Risks of a repeat will rise four-fold if global temperatures exceed two-degrees. Call on @DanielAndrewsMP to set #VicTargets to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. A report has found that Human-driven climate change increased the likelihood that Australia would experience extreme heat, setting the stage for this summer's fires. ‘It was at least 30%, but likely much higher as models underestimate extreme heat trends’

Framing bushfire risks beyond climate change

Elderly and vulnerable people should never feel abandoned during a crisis. But that's how Marion felt, trapped in her home for months during the bushfire crisis this summer. Data shows that ‘Premium Grade Buildings’ can reduce the outdoor bushfire smoke contaminants by up to 90 per cent. Improving the standard of our homes will make them safer and more liveable, especially as our bushfires intensify. ‘Our biggest challenge with hazard reduction burning is the weather and the windows available to do it safely and effectively.’ #Bushfirecrisis

#SydneySmoke from the bushfires reached its worst level yet today, clocking in at 11 times the hazardous level. Yet Our PM Scott Morrison has seen fit to knock back calls for more funding for the firefighters on the frontline of the #ClimateEmergency ‘Scientists and former emergency service chiefs say the increased threat demands both greater resources to fight fires and urgent action to cut emissions.’

This study provides new empirical insights into how climate action groups communicate about extreme weather events on Twitter/X and how they frame the relationship of these events to climate change. We found that 1,227 (59%) of tweets mentioned climate change, compared to 49% of Black Summer articles in Australian news media [ 67 ]. That Australian climate groups more frequently raised the issue of climate change than news media amid the fires is unsurprising—they sought to use the Black Summer as an opportunity for climate mobilization while public attention was directed to the topic and as shown, peaks in tweet activity correspond with key moments during the fire season. The frequent mentions of politics/elected officials in their tweets aligns with prior analyses of climate change Twitter discussions [ 11 ]. It also suggests that Australian climate NGOs tied the bushfires to their existing political aims, namely, to counter perceived climate inaction on the part of former Prime Minister Scott Morrison and political leaders at the time.

However, our findings offer novelty and value by showing how these groups framed the bushfire-climate change relationship and to what extent they incorporated climate science in their tweets. Only 28 tweets (1% of total) suggested inaccurately that climate change directly causes bushfires to occur. The notion that climate change directly causes extreme weather events misleadingly implies that if climate change were to be fully stopped, fires (and resulting consequences) would no longer occur. In contrast, 327 tweets (16%) made scientific statements that specifically described how climate change affects bushfire frequency and severity, whereas 872 tweets (42%) simply mentioning climate change without detailing how it relates to bushfires. Comparatively, 29% of Australian news media coverage articles of the Black Summer covered climate change in depth and with accuracy [ 67 ]. Only seven accounts shared the van Oldenborgh et al . (2020) extreme event attribution study a total of 15 times [ 74 ].

These findings suggest that Australian climate groups could more frequently draw upon climate science related to bushfires to provide further scientific evidence backing up their arguments for climate action. Additionally, our prior research has shown that EEA results—by providing a specific quantitative estimate of how climate change influenced a weather event—can be attention-grabbing and engaging for non-climate scientists [ 40 ]. To be sure, simply communicating scientific information is not necessarily an effective strategy to encourage climate action; nonetheless, that 95 of the 102 groups did not tweet about the Black Summer EEA study is potentially a missed opportunity to call further attention to the relationship between climate change and bushfires.

We also examined to what extent these groups mentioned factors beyond climate change that affect bushfire impacts, including disaster risk reduction strategies, emergency responses, hazard reduction, and vulnerabilities. In the bushfire context, this includes firefighting, emergency communications, evacuations, planned burns, and other strategies that seek to reduce fire impacts. We found that climate action groups mentioned these aspects of bushfire risks in a relatively low percentage of tweets (312, 15%). Although it remains crucial to communicate how climate change can affect different kinds of extreme weather events, climate action groups should be aware of potential issues of framing these events as solely a climate change issue, even if promoting climate action is their main objective. The effects of climate change on bushfires are only one aspect that ultimately shaped the impacts of the Black Summer [ 59 ]. As shown in other contexts, such as flooding in Brazil, public officials may strategically blame global climate change to avert responsibility for local decision-making and planning failures [ 26 ]. The most holistic communications about potential risk factors would incorporate the role of climate change in combination with other dynamics that affect the impacts of extreme weather events. We found only 143 tweets (6% of total) that accomplished this in the bushfire case.

Directions for future research and study limitations

Given that NGOs play a significant role as science communicators [ 42 ], these findings raise questions about how NGOs engage with climate science/scientists and risk experts, and how they draw on these resources in their communications and campaigns. Forging better links between these actors could help facilitate stronger knowledge exchange and dialogue about communication strategies in the extreme weather context. For instance, surveys, interviews, and other methods could further examine the channels by which climate action advocates access and make sense of scientific information and for what kinds of campaigns (and other goals) they utilize it [ 85 ]. This would provide practical guidance to help facilitate stronger knowledge exchange and accessible science communication among diverse actors. Future research could also more closely examine the science communication role perceptions of NGOs in the extreme weather context, especially to what extent they perceive communicating climate science as part of their missions, objectives, and campaigning strategies.

Another promising direction for future research would be to explore how other types of nuances around extreme weather events and their attribution to climate change are communicated by diverse actors across different communication channels. For instance, there are varying levels of scientific confidence and understanding about the impacts of climate change on the duration, frequency, and intensity of different types of extreme weather [ 72 ]. There are also other nuances and uncertainties around specific aspects of different types of extremes, such as how climate change may affect short-duration versus longer-duration extreme rainfall events [ 86 ]. Likewise, future studies could compare how climate action NGOs frame extreme weather events in their communications to other types of organizations, such as media outlets across the political spectrum, private sector companies, and thinktanks. Other actors may seek to downplay and/or ignore climate change in the extreme weather context.

This study has several important limitations. First, we examined tweets from a limited number of organizations in response to one type of extreme weather event—our dataset is only sub-set of climate action NGO communications from a single context. We also did not distinguish between different types of NGOs which may hold a range of different strategies and priorities. Future research could explore climate change communication differences between local grassroots groups versus larger top-down organizations [ 87 ], as well as how such groups engage with different types of extreme weather events. Larger groups may have more communication resources, which in turn could inform how they frame the topic.

Second, this study looked only at Twitter/X rather than other online platforms—future research could build on our findings to examine extreme weather-related communications from these groups across other websites and communication channels. Such research might find significant differences as character-length limitations on tweets encourage brevity, which could mean that groups chose not to provide more detailed scientific statements due to a lack of space and were constrained in their content decisions. Additionally, ongoing changes to the Twitter/X platform could affect how NGOs use the platform in both the content and frequency of their posts.

Third, although we inspected tweet images for relevant text or symbols associated with our coding criteria, we did not conduct a visual discourse analysis. Researchers are increasingly examining visuals in the context of extreme weather and climate change, and recent studies have revealed striking differences in emotional tones between text and visual narratives in news media coverage of heatwaves [ 88 ]. A robust visual analysis could add important insights into how climate groups use visuals to frame extreme weather events, their relationship with climate change, and their impacts.

Fourth, we analyzed tweets within the 2019–2020 fire season in connection with the notion that extreme weather events open a limited opportunity window for climate change communication while they remain a focus of public attention. Future research could offer a more longitudinal perspective on how climate groups engage with extreme weather events before, during, and after their occurrence; however, most Twitter activity during extreme weather events has been shown to occur during the active phase of the event and rapidly drops off after [ 70 ]. This study also focused on communication providers rather than recipients—more research is needed to examine how diverse audiences respond to different frames of extreme weather events and climate change, as well as dynamics of other communication channels in conveying this information.

This study examined how Australian climate action NGOs communicated on Twitter about climate change during the 2019–2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires. Fifty-nine percent of bushfire-related tweets mentioned climate change during the period of the fires. Forty two percent of tweets mentioned climate change without describing how it relates to bushfires; 16% described specifically how climate change influences the frequency and intensity of bushfires; and 1% implied inaccurately that climate change causes bushfires. Fifteen percent of tweets discussed factors beyond climate change, such as vulnerability and disaster risk reduction strategies, that influence bushfire impacts. Only seven accounts mentioned an extreme event attribution study of the Black Summer fires. These findings suggest that although these groups largely did not tweet scientifically inaccurate information, they could further draw upon climate science to offer more precise climate change attribution statements and more often incorporate a broader range of risk factors that shape the impacts of bushfires. As populations around the world continue to confront many kinds of intensified extreme weather, assessing the framing of these events—and how different frames promote different kinds of actions—will grow in importance.

The study did not require IRB review in accordance with guidelines of the University of Oxford’s Central University Research Ethics Committee.

Supplementary data are available at Oxford Open Climate Change online.

The authors report there are no conflict of interests to declare.

Joshua Ettinger (Conceptualization [lead], Formal analysis [lead], Methodology [lead], Writing—original draft [lead]), Mary Sanford (Formal analysis [supporting], Methodology [supporting], Writing—review & editing [equal]), Peter Walton (Methodology [supporting], Supervision [equal], Writing—review & editing [equal]), David Holmes (Methodology [supporting], Writing—review & editing [equal]), and James Painter (Methodology [supporting], Supervision [equal], Writing—review & editing [equal])

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