Large-scale decrease in the social salience of climate change during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Brian R Spisak1,2, Bogdan State3,4, Ingrid van de Leemput5
1Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States of America.
Plos One
|January 19, 2022
Summary
Climate change attention on social media significantly decreased by 80% during the COVID-19 pandemic. New communication strategies focusing on systemic sustainability are needed for climate change awareness.
Area of Science:
- Environmental science
- Social science
- Communication studies
Background:
- Growing concerns exist regarding waning public attention to climate change amidst intensifying global crises.
- Understanding public engagement with climate change on social media is crucial for effective communication.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze trends in climate change discourse on social media.
- To develop a social media salience index (SMSI) for climate change.
- To assess the impact of competing global events on climate change communication.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of billions of aggregated and de-identified link shares and reshares on Meta's Facebook platform in the US (August 2019 - December 2020).
- Identification and quantification of link shares related to "climate change" and "global warming" to create the Climate SMSI score.
Main Results:
- A substantial 80% decrease in climate change content sharing and resharing was observed as COVID-19 spread in spring 2020.
- Climate change salience experienced a temporary resurgence in autumn 2020, coinciding with major wildfires and droughts in the US.
- Post-rebound, content sharing and resharing returned to low levels, indicating a persistent challenge in maintaining climate change focus.
Conclusions:
- Climate change communication faces significant challenges due to competing global crises.
- The study highlights the need for innovative climate communication strategies.
- A focus on "systemic sustainability" is proposed as a potentially more effective approach to engage the public amidst competing global issues.
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