ABSTRACT

The link between extreme weather and climate change is being highlighted in ever more countries. Increased public understanding of this issue is essential for policymaking, both in terms of climate change mitigation and adaptation. As social media are becoming central to the exchange of information in society, the purpose is to analyze what generates intensified attention to the connection between extreme weather and climate change in digital communication. This is done by examining periods of intensified co-occurrence of mentions of extreme weather and climate change on English-language Twitter (N = 948,993). Our quantitative analysis suggests that during the period 2008–2017 the years 2010, 2011 and 2017 exhibit a considerable increase in ‘causality discourse’, i.e. tweets that articulate the topic of climate change + extreme weather, in comparison with earlier years. These periods of significant growth are interpreted as involving dynamic relationships between three factors, namely mediated highlighting of previous or ongoing extreme-weather events (extreme-event factor); connection of extreme weather to climate change by traditional media or other intermediaries (media-driven science communication factor); and actions of individual users (digital-action factor). Through a qualitative discourse analysis, how these factors jointly generate increasing attention to ‘causality discourse’ is more closely explored for the case of 2017.

摘要

越来越多的国家正在强调极端天气和气候变化之间的联系。在减缓和适应气候变化方面，提高公众对这一问题的理解对于决策至关重要。随着社交媒体成为社会信息交流的核心，其目的是分析是什么引起了人们对数字通信中极端天气与气候变化之间联系的高度关注。这是通过检查在英语 Twitter ( N = 948,993）。我们的定量分析表明，在 2008 年至 2017 年期间，与前几年相比，2010 年、2011 年和 2017 年“因果关系话语”（即阐述气候变化 + 极端天气主题的推文）显着增加。这些显着增长时期被解释为涉及三个因素之间的动态关系，即之前或正在进行的极端天气事件的中介突出显示（极端事件因素）；传统媒体或其他中介将极端天气与气候变化联系起来（媒体驱动的科学传播因素）；和个人用户的行动（数字行动因素）。通过定性话语分析，2017 年的案例更深入地探讨了这些因素如何共同引起对“因果关系话语”的日益关注。