Representing climate: who is talking about climate change on the Internet?

Abstract

In a media environment where news about Climate Change (CC) has as its main sources politicians and, to a lesser extent, activists, Internet has served to voices interested in the issue can make themselves heard and distribute their content without need for intermediaries. However, have the pieces uploaded to cyberspace contributed to the generation of new communication proposals, with different voices and approaches, which would facilitate citizen involvement and participation? This study examining it. Through a content analysis, the representation of CC in the most popular videos on YouTube was analyzed. After examining a sample of 288 pieces disseminated during a year, it was found that politicians are the most cited sources, followed by journalists and scientists. The media occupy a privileged place in terms of production, representing 53 % of the videos analyzed (154). The 23 % (66) corresponded to "Others", where there are political parties, companies, religious organizations, and other institutions that have a recurring program that includes the environmental issue. Of these, 21.7 %, representing five cases, took part of their content from television channels. Also, 17 of the 30 private users used information from other media (16 from TV channels and one from radio). The main vocation of the messages was informative, with a focused discourse, especially in developed countries. The results show that the issues that help to understand the CC are relegated to the political situation. There is a predominance of politicians, civil servants, or former public officials as information sources over expert voices, which carries the risk of less social discussion.