More than entertainment: YouTube and public responses to the science of global warming and climate change

Abstract

The public receives and presents science-related information on global warming and climate change in many forms, but little is known about how this information is conveyed through the Internet. More specifically, very few studies have considered YouTube videos focusing on climate change. This study provides a better understanding of how this type of information may be disseminated through several levels of analysis. For this purpose, the exact narrative for the 10 most popular videos about climate change was first established by concentrating particularly on the presentation of the science of climate change. Then the public’s responses to and engagement in each video were examined through a semantic analysis of comments on the video. The results indicate that, regardless of the narrative, science-based comments dominated, but often discussed climate change in general instead of specific videos to which they were attached. In the absence of gatekeepers, YouTube users rode the coattails of popular videos about climate change and addended the videos’ messages by highlighting evidence of weak, strong, or politicized science.