Everyone has been talking about AI - so we brought it into the survey too.

What we find isn’t hype or panic, but ambivalence: people are neither clearly positive nor negative about AI’s ability to tackle climate change which seems right considering the newness of it.

This year we asked about Climate News User Needs and the gap is clear.

They value coverage that informs and explains climate issue but feel media can do better. It also fits with how audiences see journalistic roles here: more as educators/curators/watchdogs than e.g., gatekeepers.

Two overlapping shifts explain the drop:

1- TV is slipping as a primary route to climate news
2- the decline is concentrated among the over-45s.

And here’s the interesting bit: interest stays high in most places, suggesting it’s partly a supply/exposure problem, not simply "people stopped caring”.

New OCJN report with @mitalilive.bsky.social & @richardfletcher.bsky.social out today tracking climate news consumption across 🇧🇷 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇵🇰 🇬🇧 🇺🇸.

Last year we found a y-o-y decline in climate news use only in 🇺🇸. Worryingly, it’s now spread to 5/8 countries.

What’s going on? A thread 🧵

We found that the key isn't avoiding anxiety, but understanding the pathways to action:

➡️ Mainstream news consistently boosts intent to act.
➡️ Non-mainstream media also (but conditionally) works
➡️ Trust in media is a powerful amplifier, supercharging the link between news and the intention to act.

New Paper Alert 🧵📣

There is a growing concern that the negative valence in climate stories paralyses consumers & perhaps even prevents them from taking pro-environmental actions.

However, we found that climate anxiety is a robust and universal driver of pro-climate behavioral intentions.👇

We’re told doom & gloom 📰 makes people avoid climate news. Turns out… not really.

😟 Worry doesn’t push people away.
😡 Fear, anger, stress? Mostly irrelevant — except in India & Japan.

A little climate anxiety might actually keep people engaged.

🔗https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849251381613

What if the bigger problem isn’t people who are climate sceptics but systems that don’t care what the majority believe or want?

Wrote a piece on it arguing the real blockages lie in politics, power, and policy not in public scepticism.

doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Honoured to deliver my first-ever keynote at the inaugural Regional ICA Conference on Climate Change Communication, hosted by Forman Christian College, and share insights from my work with @reutersinstitute.bsky.social.

Looking forward to introspective yet engaging conversations.

While people express concerns about several issues, misinformation tops the list (87%), followed by worries about platform power.

Concerns about tech companies and gov limiting free expression are significant but notably lower than misinformation concerns. (4/5)

When it comes to trust in news & political info, search engines are the most trusted, though trust declines with age (62% for 18–24 vs. 53% for 55+). Trust in video networks (50→29%) & social media (41→22%) drops sharply.

Gender/ideology differences are less pronounced. (3/5)

Generally, people across all countries see platforms as having a net positive effect on their personal lives.

For society, respondents in 🇩🇪🇬🇧🇺🇸🇰🇷 believe only social media—and GenAI (in 🇩🇪)—has a negative societal impact, while other platforms are seen more favourably. (2/5)

📢In our new report, co-authored with @richardfletcher.bsky.social, @rasmuskleis.bsky.social, & @shannimcg.bsky.social, we examine how people in🇦🇷🇧🇷🇩🇪🇯🇵🇪🇸🇰🇷🇬🇧🇺🇸 use platforms and their views on platform governance, privacy, & misinformation.

We find evidence of ‘platform ambivalence’, and a lot more (1/5).

Starting the day with an office view like this? No complaints! ❄️✨

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #752,770!
Early adopter I guess!

📣 Evidence suggests fact-checking works but mostly that evidence comes from the Global North.

✏️We (@sachaltay.bsky.social & @ittefaq.bsky.social) thought to test it in 🇵🇰& not relying on 1 but 4 distinct misinfos.

TL;DR: It works especially among the most misinformed

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Very interesting way to measure diversity in the field of communication by Michael Scharkow. I am not sure if other fields in social sciences have done something similar because it would be worth seeing differences:

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...