Dmitry Yagodin

Blog Medvedev: Aiming for Public Consent

Abstract This essay investigates the blog of Dmitrii Medvedev whose presidency marked the move of the Russian political field towards online communication. The case is an example of a hybrid model of blogging positioned between the official press service and informality of participatory media. I use the concept of symbolic power to explore the blogs search for public consent. The study also draws on a theoretical distinction between broadcast and post-broadcast forms of communication. In a generally hostile environment of the Russian blogosphere, the blog succeeds due to its discourse of effectiveness and connections with media networks both traditional and online.

Donors Do Not Trust

Abstract Focusing on a story exposing Donors Trust (DT) as a funding source for climate denial campaigns, we introduce actor-network theory (ANT) as a methodological tool for studying online intermedia agenda-setting. The DT story, unveiled by prominent British media in early 2013, had the potential to become a global media sensation. However, this did not occur in two distinct communication actor-networks, Russia and Canada, raising questions regarding climate change journalism and agenda-setting in contemporary networked news environments. This article takes a fresh approach to studying agenda-setting processes by using ANT to trace connections between national climate agendas, networks of power and sites of mediated information. By mapping ties between attributes of DT story actor-networks, it illuminates moments that preclude or facilitate intermedia agenda-setting in online media networks. This demonstrates ANT’s potential to help better understand processes of information dissemination in an era characterised by the exceptional interconnectedness of media landscapes.

Emerging Economies and BRICS Climate Policy: The Justifying Role of Media

This chapter looks at an alliance of emerging economies (the BRICS countries) as a useful framework to study the medias role in justifying environmental policies in light of the IPCC report. It also looks at the usefulness of applying the BRICS concept to the contexts of economic growth and climate change. The climate strategies that are publicly discussed in the BRICS countries constitute the basis for future climate negotiations and geopolitical positioning. A key question then becomes: how does the media represent and justify existing and potential national climate policies with regard to the IPCC findings? To answer this question, the chapter considers two factors: the realities of the existing national media systems and the natural urge to minimize any threats to national economic growth. The empirical analysis focuses on media coverage of the IPCC reports (content analysis of the voices mentioned in the media texts and comparison of thematic representations across the selected countries).

Following the Tweets: What Happened to the IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report on Twitter?

This chapter focuses on the role of Twitter in reporting and circulating the IPCC Synthesis Report (SYR). The report is considered an empirical entry point to understand the dynamics of the new media environment and the dynamic actor-networks in which IPCC communication takes place. Using this brief document as a launching point, the chapter probes into the network of digital communication and analyzes how the scientific knowledge of SYR translated into a complex system of transnational stakeholders and their local sub-networks. Ultimately the chapter addresses the question: Does the use of social media call for reconsideration of the role of professional journalism in science communication?

Attention, Access and the Global Space of Interpretation: Media Dynamics of the IPCC AR5 Launch Year

The publication of the IPCC AR5 reports in 2013 and 2014 offers a unique case study for capturing the role of journalism in global communication. As the IPCC’s years of work were condensed first into the full reports (WGs) and then the Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs), enormous amounts of information and scientific insight were put into action at the moment of publication. This moment initiated a partially routinized and partially unexpected process that mobilized a transnational infrastructure of communication. Identifying some of the key features of this structure and understanding its dynamics is the core target of this study. In this chapter, we provide a first view of what happened at the global level as the findings of scientists and the shared interpretations of the IPCC’s scientific-political actors were compressed through the needle hole of publicity.

Conclusion: From Assessments to Solutions

The new Chair of the IPCC, Hoesung Lee, has suggested that the panel should place more emphasis on social science, initiate more interaction with business and finance, and pay more attention to solutions for climate change. This chapter pulls together findings and conclusions from the previous chapters and makes suggestions regarding how to meet the challenges of a more solution-oriented focus on climate change. It illuminates lessons that can be drawn for the IPCC itself, as well as for journalists and media researchers; recognizing that journalism is at the core of this future orientation and thereby plays an integral role in connecting the actions and arguments of various stakeholders.

Mediated Civic Epistemologies? Journalism, Domestication and the IPCC AR5

Journalism is thirsty for the concrete and the detailed, the here and now, and it is dependent on local news sources and institutions of power. This chapter illustrates the diversity of contexts that underlie the performance of the press in the 22 countries. It reflects on the role of economy, carbon emissions, media freedom, climate vulnerability, and public perception of climate change. We examine these national contexts comparatively, elaborating on similarities and differences to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of journalism as a potentially transnational institutional force. We also use measures of media attention and the volume of domestic voices to demonstrate that tension between the local and the global is a constitutive factor of journalism; that local, national fields of power are crucial for particular kinds of domestication. The analysis ends with a discussion about four ideal types of domestication logics, or types of mediated civic epistemologies, in climate politics. The chapter shows how such ideal types emerge from the actually existing local conditions of globalizing climate journalism.