How anti-climate action groups optimize engagement on social media
New study shows anti-climate action groups create more engagement on Facebook than their pro-climate action counterparts. And news stories from mainstream media are part of the strategy.
For this edition of Carbon Paper, we’re testing a new approach. Journalism student and contributor to the newsletter Brianna Losinger-Ross interviewed Shane Gunster, an associate professor from Simon Fraser University, about a study we thought you, readers, will be interested in because we definitely were! You’ll find our selection of best climate stories from February right after!
How anti-climate action groups optimize engagement on social media
“You find that there are far-right news media writing very selective and highly misleading things, and this sort of outraged journalism was getting more Facebook engagement and traction than CTV or The Globe and Mail.” - Shane Gunster
by Brianna Losinger-Ross
Anti-climate action groups use social media more effectively than their pro-climate action counterparts, found Shane Gunster, an associate professor from Simon Fraser University. They’re also getting more traction, when posting about climate change, than leading media organisations such as CTV, The Globe and Mail or The Toronto Star.
In a recent study published by the Canadian Journal of Communication, Gunster examined and compared how anti-climate action and pro-climate action groups use Facebook to garner attention and support for their respective causes.
“If there’s a great article [on climate change], pro-climate organizations will link to it once,” Gunster said in an interview with Carbon Paper. “What the anti-climate groups will do is they’ll take the arguments, make them into memes, have a quote, a catchy saying, include share if you agree, and they’ll push it over and over again, because repetition works.”
Gunster scraped the Facebook posts containing the words “climate change” and “global warming” published by Canadian pages between December 2019 and December 2020. He analyzed the ones getting at least 50 interactions, for a total of 6,631 post from 520 different pages.
“Looking deeper, you find that there are far-right news media writing very selective and highly misleading things, and this sort of outraged journalism was getting more Facebook engagement and traction than CTV or The Globe and Mail,” explained Gunster.
Image source: Gunster, S. (2022). Curating Climate (In)Action: Strategic News-Sharing in Canadian Civil Society. Canadian Journal of Communication 47(4),592-620.
When comparing the way both groups used social media, there was a significant difference in the engagement that pro-climate action groups would receive, mainly because they did not seem to try to grow communities the same way anti-climate groups did.
“At least on Facebook, the pro-climate groups didn’t seem to have any sort of coherent strategy in terms of building their own networks,” he explained. “There was nowhere near the same sort of effort to drive people into left media ecosystems that would give the type of climate journalism necessary to pursue the political objectives of the climate movement in Canada.”
Gunster explained that anti-climate groups were able to perfect a social media strategy by sharing articles to their network which fit their narrative and would garner both a lot of attention and engagement.
Top engagement getters were right-leaning, anti-climate action columnists, some being published by mainstream media organizations, getting more traction because of being shared by anti-climate action pages. “That’s kind of scary,” said Gunster.
Image source: Gunster, S. (2022). Curating Climate (In)Action: Strategic News-Sharing in Canadian Civil Society. Canadian Journal of Communication 47(4),592-620.
Postmedia was the organization getting most amplification for its content by anti-climate action pages, while CBC content was for pro climate-action groups.
“I was disappointed to not find more of a concerted effort by the pro-climate groups to build support and channel people to The Narwhal, The Tyee and The National Observer, organizations that are doing really good climate journalism,” the professor continued.
Gunster believes that everything pro-climate groups need to use social media more effectively is right there in his study.
“The left has to realize that if you’re a big advocacy organization, you have to think tactically about what sort of information ecology is going to push your political agenda further,” he said. “Pro-climate groups have to realize who their allies are, who in this media ecosystem are producing the kind of information we need more of and actively send people to those sites and figure out how to do that more effectively.”
Best Stories from February
Des changements climatiques, mais pas politiques (Le Devoir)
Technology or natural solutions: what's our best bet for fighting climate change? (CBC)
G20 finance chiefs to tackle global economic threats (CTV)
The thin green line — where disinformation meets greenwashing (Canada’s National Observer)
Will this new carbon capture technology help solve the climate crisis? (CTV)
Are Canadian oilsands companies working to save the planet or save face? (The Narwhal)
Vers un Saint-Laurent sans glace? (Le Devoir)
The Climate and the Media in Canada newsletter is a monthly publication brought to you by Concordia Journalism assistant professor Amélie Daoust-Boisvert and her team. It’s made possible because of support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Questions, feedback? Reach out at cmrconcordia@gmail.com
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This month, the newsletter is signed by Amélie Daoust-Boisvert, Brianna Losinger-Ross and Mélanie Lussier. Editor-in-chief and editor Amélie Daoust-Boisvert.