Urgency to act on climate: Blurring boundaries of journalism and advocacy on Twitter during #COP21Jill E. Hopke (DePaul University) and Luis E. Hestres (University of Texas, San Antonio)

MethodsWe collected a dataset of more than 150,000 Twitter posts from one week prior to COP21 to one week following the conference’s closing, Nov. 21 to Dec. 21, 2015, using the data analytic software DiscoverText. In addition, COP21 social media share of voice and top retweet data were collected with Crimson Hexagon.

We included 98 key Twitter accounts across 12 categories, including: The Guardian accounts, major U.S. publications, Climate Publishers Network (CPN), climate movement organizations, individual climate activists, multinational institutions and scientific organizations, and the fossil fuel industry.

We collected both social posts originating from these accounts, as well as posts @mentioning them. We narrowed the data using key term searches, including: “COP21,” “climate change” and “divest*” to address the following:

RQ1) How does The Guardian’s COP21 posting compare to other stakeholders?RQ2) How does the volume of social media posts about fossil fuel divestment during COP21 compare to general conversation about the Paris climate talks?

Corresponding AuthorEmail: jhopke@depaul.edu Twitter: @jillhopke Web: jillhopke.com

London 2016

Figure 3: Posts about COP21 by Twitter UserCategory

Figure 4: Visual Posts about COP21 by Twitter UserCategory

Figure 1: COP21 Social Posts by Share of Voice

Results

Figure 2: Divestment Top Retweets During COP21

χ2 (df = 11, N = 12,699) = 764.214, p = .000.Cramer’s V = .245, p = .000.

χ2 (df = 11, N = 154,156) = 39139.535, p = .000.Cramer’s V = .504, p = .000.

Key Take-Aways and Future ResearchFossil fuel divestment was not a highly discussed topic during COP21, in terms of volume. However, divestment activists used COP21 to draw attention to their campaign. The Guardian’s volume of COP21 posting was similar to that of other news actor types, though its accounts were more likely to use visuals in COP21 posts.

While media framing is a core concept in journalism research, little work has looked at traditional media framing mechanisms within social media content. In the next phrase of this project, we are studying the framing of “climate solutions” across actor types. By examining framing of fossil fuel divestment and climate issues across actor types, our research will expand knowledge on how media framing mechanisms function, or not, within the fluid, affective and crowdsourced information streams found in social media applications.

BackgroundIn December 2015, representatives of 195 nations meeting in Paris for the Conference of the Parties (COP21) set an ambitious goal to reach net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the mid-century. During the talks climate activists took to social media to get out their message on climate justice.

Before the official summit kicked off, activists held more than 2,300 events in over 175 countries in a Global Climate March, rallying around the shared goal, “Keep fossil fuels in the ground and finance a just transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050.” At the same time, international media attention to climate issues was heightened leading up to, and during, the climate talks.

ObjectiveWe study Twitter posting during COP21 about fossil fuel divestment. We focus on COP21 coverage by the British news outlet The Guardian, which in 2015 launched its “Keep it in the Ground” advocacy campaign. We compare The Guardian’s posting during COP21 with other news outlets, climate stakeholders, and fossil fuel industry actors.

The authors would like to thank Ariel Wagner for assistance with coding.