Speaking of climate change: a discursive analysis of lay understandings

Abstract

Representations of climate change have been a recurrent motif in media and political domains spanning over 20 years. However, relatively scant scholarly work has addressed how laypeople make sense of this phenomenon in talk. The current study, employing a discursive approach, demonstrates how the salience of climate change, as a social issue, is accounted for and made contingent on social, financial, and political factors. Moreover, the issue of climate change was accounted for as an intergenerational issue, and moral considerations were mobilized in arguing for why the issue should be provided increased attention. We argue that science communication research could fruitfully examine the discursive building blocks underpinning taken-for-granted ways of talking about climate change, informing the design of alternative discourses.