Português

The Politics of Climate Change: Discourses and Representations

Project funded by Fundação para a Ciência e para a Tecnologia

POCI/COM/56973/2004

This project aims to understand the relation between the discourses of various social actors on climate change, their representation in the media and citizens perception of the issue.

New

Conference

19-20 November 2007

Research team members

Anabela Carvalho (Project leader): carvalho@ics.uminho.pt

Universidade do Minho, Departamento de Ciências da Comunicação

Rosa Cabecinhas: cabecinhas@ics.uminho.pt

Universidade do Minho, Departamento de Ciências da Comunicação

Alexandra Lázaro: alexandra.lazaro@gmail.com

Rui Ramos: rlramos@iec.uminho.pt

Universidade do Minho, Departamento de Ciências Integradas e Língua Materna

Eulália Pereira: eulaliaspav@gmail.com

Research assistant

Project consultant: Jacquie Burgess, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom

Objectives

The main objectives of this project are fourfold:

• Firstly, we aim to systematically analyse and map the discourse of various social actors regarding risk associated with climate change and regarding government, corporate and citizen responsibility to address the issue.
• Secondly, we intend to analyse the structure and the functioning of media discourse on this issue in order to understand what are the dominant traits in the discursive (re)construction of the issue and what social and political consequences that may have.
• Thirdly, we will seek to identify hegemonic and minority social representations on the issue, i.e. to know what are the views and beliefs of citizens on this matter.
• The final goal is to trace the relations between these various moments of discourse and representation; in other words, we will endeavour to explain the circular processes in which discourse gets shaped and to draw implications for action.

Summary of project

Climate change is possibly the most challenging environmental problem of the 21^st century. This project aims to analyse the textually-constructed meanings that are attached to climate change by different social actors in a variety of arenas and to draw bridges between the meanings that circulate in the public sphere(s) and citizens’ perception of the issue. Understanding the relation between mediated discourses and social representations of the science and politics of climate change in Portugal is therefore our main goal.

A critical understanding of the social construction of climate change requires, in the first place, an analysis of the discourse of relevant social actors. By advancing particular readings of the issue, politicians, scientists, corporations and activists suggest particular forms of thinking and acting on the problem.

The media play a crucial role in amplifying given discourses and suppressing others. While news organs sustain certain forms of dealing with climate change they also annihilate the space for debating alternative courses of action. We aim to identify the conditions of intelligibility of climate change that are dominant in the media and link them to particular action possibilities. We also intend to understand the conditions for resistance and contestation to mainstream discourses.

People’s perception of climate change is likely to be influenced by the media’s (re)construction of the problem. An important purpose of this project will be to study social representations of the issue and understand the ways in which these are linked to media discourses.

We will pay particular attention to two main themes. Firstly, representations of risk, which are connected to knowledge of the issue, are a foundation for thinking and acting on the issue. Quantitative research has indicated that the public in Portugal had high levels of concern in relation to global warming and were likely to see it as potentially harmful about a decade ago. We will attempt to evaluate present views of social actors, media and citizens with both quantitative and qualitative tools.

Secondly, attitudes and behaviours towards addressing climate change are linked to representations of responsibility: Who is responsible (the government, corporations, individuals) for solving - or at least minimizing - the problem? What should the distribution of responsibility be amongst the various contributors to the problem? We should note that other important representations are embedded in views of risk and responsibility.

We anticipate that three issues will be specially relevant: trust with regard to scientists and policy-makers; the social value of equity (inter-national, inter-generational, inter-class); and people’s sense of agency in relation to causation and mitigation of climate change and in relation to the very societal decision-making process. We will aim to evaluate the significance of these ideas in a variety of discourses and representations.

Project tasks

The project involves three different tasks:

Task 1: Analysing the discourse of social actors on climate change

Task n. 2: Analysing media discourse on climate change

Task n. 3: Studying social representations on climate change

Publications