Minority positions on the climate change debate: Skeptics' & contrarians' interpretative resources in the social contestation of climate change on comment sections from online newspapers

• Autor(a) principal: Ramos, Nuno Miguel Figueiredo Monteiro Marques
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/23745
• topic: Alteração climática -- Climate change; Skepticism; Contrarianism; Comunicação -- Communication; Cultural theory; Representações sociais -- Social representations; Ceticismo; Contrarianismo; Teoria cultural

With an exclusive focus on minority positions on climate change (CC), this dissertation examines the social and political debate happening on comment sections of CC-related articles from the Portuguese online newspapers Diário de Notícias and Observador. Motivated by the recent electoral successes in the European continent of far-right or populist political parties whose policy is associated with minority positions on CC, this study draws from theoretical frameworks engaged with cultural constructions of society and nature, as well as processes of meaning-making in self-other relations. It (1) analyzes in the comments how majority positions on CC are opposed and minority ones advanced when meanings clash, and (2) establishes how CC advocates are perceived and undermined by skeptics & contrarians. This dissertation analyses in detail insightful skeptical & contrarian comments paying attention to both content and form, namely by looking at polemic/dichotomized views seeking to reinforce skeptical & contrarian narratives, as well as at non-dichotomized ones where further dialogue is not inhibited. The results show that presently in the CC debate occurring in the press minority positions are to be found much more in comments than in published pieces. They also show how strict denial of anthropogenic CC is a rare occurrence among the comments reviewed, but that skepticism & contrarianism can manifest themselves in a variety of ways, and can assume many forms, including contestation of climate scientists, environmentalists and decision-makers, individually or as a group, whose calls-to-action elicit reactions of distrust, opposition, or conspiratorial ideas, depending on people’s worldviews. Contributing to the study of minority positions on CC, this dissertation provides further insight for science communication and policymaking into the role of people’s shared interpretative resources in the imagination and response to CC.