Anglistica AION: An Intersciplinary Journal

Front Matter

2023-12-17

Climate Change Discourse. Remediation and Recontextualization in News and Social Media

Cinzia Bevitori — 2023-12-17

The World Without Us. A CDA of News Media Discourse on the Impact of COVID-19 on the Environment in the UK

Antonella Napolitano — 2023-12-17

Government policies during the COVID-19 pandemic have drastically altered patterns of energy demand around the world. Many international borders have been closed and populations have been confined to their homes, which has reduced transport and changed consumption patterns. A decrease in CO2 emissions and pollution has thus been recorded during forced confinements. This has offered a glimpse of how the world might look like with a drastic reduction of human impact. The present paper explores how facts are framed in news discourse and investigates the recontextualization of the environmental issue in news media. The study analyses a collection of news articles about the consequences of coronavirus on the environment published on the websites of the major news channels in the UK, namely BBC News and Sky News. This CDA investigation studies how the UK news outlets re-mediated scientific knowledge about climate change to emphasise or minimise the positive consequences of confinement on the planet.

Climate Change and Global Warming. An American Perspective through the Lenses of Old and New Modes of Communication

Denise Milizia — 2023-12-17

Starting from the premise that climate change is a divisive issue in the United States, and that the phrases ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ have partisan significance, we compare the rhetoric U.S. presidents have used in their statements about the climate crisis in debates, interviews, and other contexts vis-à-vis what they have said/written in social media. We find more polarization in social media; ‘global warming’ seems to be more commonly associated with tweets that use a hoax frame, and is used more often by Republicans than Democrats. Thus, we find Donald Trump tweeting, “I don’t think science knows. This climate crisis is not only fake news but also fake science, bullshit, and an expensive hoax”, and Joe Biden arguing that “climate change is an existential threat, it’s already here, and we have to hurry, we have to act before it’s too late, because time is running out”.

“Make a Change for Climate Change”. A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Online Environmental Petitions in the USA and UK

Maria Cristina Aiezza — 2023-12-17

This study examines a corpus of e-petitions calling for action against climate change, published on Change.org in the USA and UK. The investigation focuses on the persuasive strategies employed in user-generated discourse, and compares the trends emerging in the two national contexts. The analysis centres on how petitioners engage with climate science, re-mediating scientific concepts by explaining global phenomena in their own words and referring to authoritative sources. The study thus explores the use of interactive metadiscourse devices typical of popular science writing. The approach is based on corpus-assisted discourse analysis. Findings indicate that climate change was perceived as a well-documented threat requiring urgent action. It was frequently addressed in conjunction with other topics, particularly, wildlife and water conservation in the USA, and land protection in the UK. All petitions contained a mediation of specialised information, encompassing general references to environmental issues and specific evidence quoted from scientific research.

Linguistic Remediation of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report in Twitter Discourse on Climate Change

Marina Niceforo — 2023-12-17

In the age of global environmental crisis, information about climate change is disseminated through a wide range of channels in a variety of textual genres, from scientific publications and normative texts to news, or blogs. Climate-related discourses available on social media offer valuable examples of remediation of technical-scientific information addressed to large groups of non-experts.

In line with the popularisation of scientific knowledge (Gotti 2014), the present study investigates the linguistic remediation of specialised concepts from the sixth IPCC report on climate change (released by the UN last February 28th, 2022) in a corpus of about 4200 tweets by international environmental organisations, institutions, and other public figures. The dataset, retrieved via web scraping tools, is analysed using qualitative analysis software (NVivo) to observe thematic and linguistic features of remediated discourse – in particular, about the four key terms and notions risk, vulnerability, adaptation, and resilience.

While computer-mediated discourse analysis (Herring 2004) and ecolinguistics (Stibbe 2015) provide the theoretical framework for this study, risk communication (Russo 2018, Bevitori and Johnson 2022) and appraisal theory (Martin and White 2005) enable considerations of expressive language and effective communication, authors’ critical positioning, circulation of scientific information, and possible positive impact of remediated discourses on people’s environmental attitudes and behaviours.

The Re-contextualisation of Climate Change in Activist Discourse. Counter-narratives and Temporalities in the Web-Documentary Seat at the Table

Arianna Del Gaudio — 2023-12-17

Activists and NGOs have increasingly used digital platforms to communicate alternative views of climate change science, while concurrently adopting discursive and rhetorical strategies to increase support and promote action. Based on such premises, the web documentary Seat at the Table (2021) recontextualises climate science to inform and persuade laypeople. Yet, it presents an alternative genre for the popularisation of climate-change scientific knowledge. Drawing on Corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis and the Appraisal Framework, the study investigates the re-contextualisation of activists' social practices in web documentaries to provide a space for the analysis of dominant and non-dominant discourses of climate change. Hence, it investigates how climate change is discursively represented and appraised by activists and the so-called “unheard voices” of climate change.

Towards “Net Zero”. Climate Change Discourse and Australia’s Green Policy in Election Campaigns

Marisa Della Gatta — 2023-12-17

Climate change discourse is increasingly gaining ground in the political arena, both as a possible explanation and/or outcome of different crises and as “a climate crisis” on its own. With an increasing number of metaphors used to describe the phenomena linked to climate change, “net zero” is one the fastest emerging frames, yet it is understudied. This paper draws on climate security research and looks at the climate change discourse in Australia with a focus on the “net zero” target. Is climate change an explanatory instrument in Australian election campaigns that can be ascribed as a political concern?

Climate change has been an appealing but undeveloped topic in Australian political discourse. In Australia environmental concerns have taken ground after the bushfires in 2019 and the climate discourse had an impact on the 2019 and 2022’s electoral campaigns. Climate change is arguably the fastest growing concern in Australian politics; it is fair to say that the 2022 election was “the climate election”. This research adopts a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis approach for a systematic analysis of the “net zero” target in Australian political discourse, its political significance, and its resonance both in electoral speeches and social media in the last ten years. The corpus consists of presidential speeches during the elections and tweets by the Australia Prime Ministers in the timeframe from 2013 to 2022, also taking into consideration comments by users in Australia and worldwide. The analysis of the “net zero” target can contribute to a better understanding of how climate change is politically construed and communicated.

Climate Trauma and Activism. The Social Media Coverage of Climate Crisis and Its Effects. An Overview

Aureliana Natale — 2023-12-17

The aim of the article is to provide a reflection on the multiple and often opposing effects of climate crisis and trauma from a cultural point of view. In the first part, it will consider climate change and its effects, such as anxiety, depression and pre- and post-traumatic stress disorder. It will then focus on public reactions and the possibility of positive engagement fostered by social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. It argues that by informing the public about the physical and mental consequences, social media can raise awareness and shape public opinion, inspiring action. Thus, anxiety and activism may emerge as contrasting outcomes of media coverage on climate change. The article provides a reflection on this coexistence and its causes, and speculates on future developments.

Notes on Contributors

2023-12-17