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Visual digital intermediaries and global climate communication: Is climate change still a distant problem on YouTube?
Alexandra Segerberg1, Matteo Magnani2
1Department of Government, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Plos One
|April 8, 2025
Summary
Digital platforms like YouTube often reinforce a narrow view of climate change communication, favoring traditional content and Global North perspectives. This limits diverse, local climate change narratives from gaining visibility worldwide.
Area of Science:
- Digital Communication
- Climate Change Communication
- Media Studies
Background:
- Digital intermediaries shape online information dissemination.
- The 'green ghetto' describes the limited visibility of traditional environmental communication online.
- Global platforms may create uneven visibility for climate change communication across regions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze YouTube's role in visual climate change communication globally.
- To investigate how digital platforms contribute to the persistence of traditional climate communication repertoires.
- To assess the uneven distribution of visibility for climate change content worldwide.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of YouTube (Search) content articulation in 232 countries and languages.
- Combination of API research, channel coding, and computational image analysis.
- Assessment of top-ranked climate change results for diversity and local context proximity.
Main Results:
- YouTube Search favors established 'visibility winners' with traditional climate change visual repertoires.
- Content often frames climate change as a distant issue.
- Sources from the Global North dominate search results across most regions.
- Notable regional exceptions to these dominance patterns were observed.
Conclusions:
- Digital intermediaries like YouTube can perpetuate a limited and geographically skewed representation of climate change.
- Efforts are needed to promote diverse and locally relevant climate change communication on global platforms.
- Understanding platform algorithms is crucial for equitable climate communication.
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