Communicating Climate Change: Discourses, Mediations and Perceptions

The scientific, political and economic complexity of climate change brings up a number of challenges for communication. What are the meanings associated with climate change in different parts of the world and how have those meanings been produced, reproduced and transformed? How have the media in different countries been representing this issue? How do people perceive climate change and to what extent are they integrating it into their actions?

This book contributes to answering these questions by looking at three main aspects: the discourses of a variety of social actors on climate change, from scientists to religious leaders; the reconstruction of those discourses in the media and the multiple depictions of the issue in the press, television and the Internet; and citizens’ perceptions, understandings and attitudes in relation to climate change. The scholars that write in this book analyse these issues in the context of Germany, USA, Mexico, Portugal, Poland and other countries, and help understand the circular relations between discourses, mediations and perceptions.