Effective Climate Communication

Anastasia Denisova is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism at the Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster, UK. She specialises in viral cultures, internet memes, and climate change communication and is the author of the book Internet Memes and Society (2019) and the policy brief Fashion Media and Sustainability (2021). She has published widely in top academic journals, including Social Media + Society; Media, Culture and Society; and Journalism. Dr Denisova is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a board member of Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Ten news values for climate communication. From ‘crisisation’ to attribution, emotional offsets, pragmatic instructions and compelling storytelling.- 3. Global South and Global North – discrepancies in climate coverage.- 4. The many faces of greenwashing.- 5. The ‘ignorance as a choice’ paradox, and the role of depleted resources in the responses to climate messages.- 6. From emotions to determination – the communication tools for free riders, social proof, and ‘conditional cooperators’.- 7. Climate optimism or climate pessimism? Self-efficacy boosters, and storytelling for change.- 8. Conclusion.