Global Attention to Antimicrobial Resistance and Climate Change in the Era of Social Media

Abstract

Abstract This chapter analyses the difference in social media attention of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and climate change. Despite many characteristic similarities between AMR and climate change, the latter has received much higher attention than AMR on social media. Relying on social media and digital methods using big data, combined with interviews and online material, the chapter highlights and explains the difference between the two cases. The chapter applies an iteratively developed conceptual framework, ‘the tripartite dimensions of social media attention’, to analyse the difference. This framework looks at three dimensions of social media engagement, namely, the origins of tweeter attention, the nature of tweets, and the nature of Twitter communities. The chapter finds that the AMR tweeter attention mainly originates from organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO) and the expert community, while climate change tweeter attention originates from much more complex and dispersed users. many of whom are non-expert individuals. The digital individual entrepreneurs of climate change communicate in a dramatic and aesthetic manner, while the AMR digital individual users are limited to scientific communications. The nature of communities of climate change and AMR differ in their ideological homogeneity and heterogeneity. While climate change communities are highly polarized, AMR communities are neither ideologically polarized nor in disagreement scientifically.