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Solutions journalism is intended to support responses to complex threats. However, it is unclear what it means for reporting to inspire or empower audiences within specific contexts such as climate change. Moreover, climate change can pose unique communication challenges to practitioners due to high levels of complexity and uncertainty. This study uses in-depth interviews with 25 environmental journalists to investigate goals and challenges of climate solutions journalism. Overall, interviewees aimed for solutions coverage to improve audiences’ understanding of the problem of climate change while inspiring hope that expansive change could be achieved and that individual action has a meaningful role to play. In terms of encouraging action, journalists sought to support audience agency and offer pathways for involvement in climate solutions. However, the complexity of climate solutions presented challenges identifying and evaluating high-impact solutions. This difficulty was magnified by industry weaknesses and a lack of access to trustworthy resources. Theoretically, climate solutions coverage appears to take an active role supporting solutions, but journalists place high priority on equipping audiences to think critically about responses to climate change. Meanwhile, there are plentiful opportunities for universities, research organizations, and academic publications to help alleviate barriers to quality climate solutions coverage.
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Practitioner perspectives on climate mobilities in South Florida
Abstract Moving away from hazardous areas may be an important adaptive response under intensifying climate change, but to date such movement has been controversial and conducted with limited government or private-sector support. Research has emphasized resident perspectives on mobility, but understanding how professionals view it may open new avenues to shape future outcomes. Based on 76 interviews with professionals involved in climate responses in South Florida, we evaluate perceptions of adaptation goals, the potential role of climate mobilities in pathways supporting those goals, and associated constraints and enablers. The practitioners interviewed anticipate multiple types of climate mobilities will occur in the region, at increasing scales. Interviewees perceive climate mobilities at present, especially migration and gentrification where climate plays some role, as causing distributional inequities and financial and sociocultural disruptions, and they view existing adaptive strategies as best serving those who already have adequate resources, despite practitioners’ personal commitments to social justice goals. Although many practitioners feel prepared for their own, limited roles related to climate mobilities, they judge the region as a whole as being unprepared to support the retreat they see as inevitable, with a need for a more ambitious long-term transition plan. Achieving this need will be difficult, as practitioners indicate that climate mobilities remain hard to talk about politically. Nevertheless, interviewees believe some households are already considering moving in response to climate risks. Discussions of climate mobilities, through interviews and far beyond, may encourage more mindful choices about and engagement in climate-driven transformations.
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- PAR ID:
- 10481716
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Oxford Open Climate Change
- Volume:
- 3
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2634-4068
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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