Effective Climate Communication: Turning Eco-Anxiety into Eco-Action [Paperback]

This book explores the urgent challenges of communicating climate change in the media. While many books have been written about climate change, this book goes to the very heart of what makes humans care about stories enough to act. In a direct and sympathetic approach, Denisova tackles problems of greenwashing, news narratives, colonial framings and more. Taking climate anxiety as a starting point, the author positions herself with empathy and asks the question: what slows down citizen action? This fresh perspective acknowledges the pressing challenge of public disengagement and the anxiety people feel when faced with increasingly bleak headlines as the climate crisis intensifies. There is a surprising challenge to apocalyptic storytelling and a heros narrative, which Denisova argues are counter-productive, while solutions are provided for media storytellers. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to ease climate-related anxiety and foster a deeper sense of empowerment in their audience.

 

1. Introduction.- 2. Ten news values for climate communication. From crisisation to attribution, emotional offsets, pragmatic instructions and compelling storytelling.- 3. Global South and Global North  discrepancies in climate coverage.- 4. The many faces of greenwashing.- 5. The ignorance as a choice paradox, and the role of depleted resources in the responses to climate messages.- 6. From emotions to determination  the communication tools for free riders, social proof, and conditional cooperators.- 7. Climate optimism or climate pessimism? Self-efficacy boosters, and storytelling for change.- 8. Conclusion.

Anastasia Denisova is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster, UK. She specialises in viral cultures, internet memes, and climate change communication and is the autholÃ7