On April 1, 2021, a Tweet by @Breaking911 quoted information from The Washington Post about the Environmental Protection Agency, and the new Administrator Michael Reagan. The Tweet stated how Reagan will “fire all experts hired under the Trump administration” and “restore ‘science’ and ‘trust in the agency.’” Replies to this Tweet included comments such as “So science is about compliance to a narrative?” or “They just pick which scientists they want you to listen to and ignore the science they don’t want to hear.” This may be jarring to those who believe in climate change; however, they reflect a worldview of some of the people who participate in the debate on climate change. Therefore, to effectively participate in discussions of climate change, it is imperative to understand the variety of worldviews represented and their connection to offline perspectives. Therefore, the primary questions of this study are: how do climate change discourses circulate online, and how do they reflect and recreate ideas of culture, identity, and ideology? This builds on existing anthropological and climate change literature. It begins to unpack how “global climate change” is reflected and created in everyday online conversation via the wide range of perspectives that users express from around the world. Using the tools and methods of an anthropologically informed discourse-centered approach, I analyzed posts from Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to see what users are saying, how they are saying it, and how symbols and semiotics are used. I started my investigation exploring #ClimateChange, then narrowed my focus to the topics and events that dominated the hashtag. From analyzing 61 original posts and hundreds of comments from the three social media platforms, I found that the space created by #ClimateChange encourages critique based on the authority of science, ideologies about the identity of messengers, and intertextual links to outside arguments. This work is important for my future career by helping me to establish cultural competency in the climate change discourse.
Author: Ivan Wehner
Faculty Advisor: Leighton C. Peterson, Anthropology
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