UNIVERSITY EXETER
The climate change debates on Reddit don’t take place in a polarizing “echo chamber,” New research suggests.
The study found evidence suggestive of many “intentional debates”.
University of Exeter researchers looked at different topics, sources of information, and the existence of communities in climate discussions on Reddit.
They found little evidence of echo chambers – in contrast to research in advance on Twitter shows that discussions of climate change often occur in polarized echo chambers.
However, the study found evidence of polarization, with the most common theme in climate-related posts and comments being the “uncivilized debate” (contains naming and language use). not friendly).
“We also found suggestive evidence of ‘deliberate debate’, with a great deal of discussion about important aspects of the climate crisis and many suggestive topics,” said the lead author. for a non-violent debate. Kathie Treenfrom the University of Exeter.
“It’s encouraging to see the lack of echo rooms, aside from a single pro-Trump community that has been banned by Reddit.
“Despite the polarization of opinion, the two sides are arguing in the same place.”
The researchers used three methods to analyze climate discussions on Reddit:
- Topic modeling (data about words commonly found together, can reveal the topics being discussed). This represents wide-ranging discussions on topics including the causes and effects of climate change, politics, economics and science. But “wise debate” dominates more posts and comments than any other topic, and climate skepticism/denial is only a half behind.
- Community detection (who interacts with each other?). A “response network” based on respondents for whom is used to detect individual communities. Mapping the interactions between these communities revealed what Treen calls a “hairball” of interconnected communities. Instead of echo chambers where members just talk to each other, different communities are “highly connected” (measured by the degree of interaction between different communities).
- Analyze sources (which source did the user cite?). The sources cited show an overall political and environmental left-wing bias in its climate stance. Wikipedia is the most shared source, followed by YouTube and Twitter. The only traditional “expert-made” sources in the top 10 were Guardian and Nasa. IPCC – the authoritative assessment body for climate change information – ranks 35th.
Treen explains that “while most research on the social media climate debate has focused on Twitter, Reddit has a different platform architecture, such as community moderation and topic-based rather than follower-based information flows.”
“The findings of our paper suggest that underpinning architecture plays an important role in shaping the online debate about climate,” she added.
The study used data from April 1 to June 30, 2017 – a pivotal period in climate politics, when the United States announced its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on June 1 of that year.
The researchers analyzed 18,558 posts and 267,147 comments from 93,850 users related to climate change.
Article, published in the journal Environmental communicationtitled: “Debating Climate Change on Reddit: Polarizing Speech or Intentional Debate?”
The paper’s authors include researchers working on ACCESS, a new five-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council that aims to provide leadership in the contribution of the social sciences to addressing and addressing a wide range of environmental issues. school. It will build leadership in a new cohort of early career researchers and collaborate with stakeholders to ensure social science evidence informs decision-making.
JOURNEYS
Environmental communication
DOI
10.1080 / 17524032.2022.2050776
RESEARCH METHODS
Data analysis / statistics
RESEARCH SUBJECTS
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Climate Change Discussion on Reddit: Polarizing Speech or Intentional Debate?
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
April 10, 2022
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