Adrienne Russell’s The Mediated Climate critiques how Big Tech and corporate media distort the public’s understanding of the climate crisis through algorithmic manipulation and misinformation. According to Tanya Goyal, the book is a timely, well-argued call for media reform to enable effective climate action, though it could benefit from more global perspectives and actionable recommendations for practitioners.
As we edge closer to environmental catastrophe and mass species extinction, imagine tuning into the news only to find that the most critical story of our era – the “glocal” climate crisis – is buried beneath sensational headlines and misinformation. This isn’t a far-fetched scenario; it’s our daily reality. In The Mediated Climate, Adrienne Russell, Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Journalism, Media, and Democracy at the University of Washington, tackles this profound disconnect between the climate emergency and its portrayal in today’s hypermediated world. Her work joins a growing scholarship exploring environmental and climate crisis communication, including recent notable works by Max Boycoff and Bruno Takahashi et al.
According to Russell, the climate crisis isn’t just scientific, but deeply social, exacerbated by an information crisis rooted in concentrated, unaccountable media power, thriving under the US liberal tradition, reflecting the “tactic” of promoting individual solutions to systemic problems. The book explores the evolution of climate journalism and questions the role of media corporations, journalists, activists, and tech companies in fostering public perception around climate communication. Based on her analysis, she advocates for a shift in how we conceive of and regulate freedom of speech and calls for media policy discourse reform to address the climate crisis effectively.
The book provides theoretical and conceptual discussions drawn from fifteen years of research and large-scale comparative analyses of global climate journalism conducted by the author as part of the MediaClimate research team. Each chapter addresses the role of different forces in shaping climate communication and, in turn, climate-conscious “publics”.
the fight for social justice is inseparable from the fight for media justice, as the structural system of misinformation and greenwashing persists in undermining efforts to address the climate crisis
Chapter One, “House on Fire,” delves into the cultural ignorance surrounding climate change, shaped by media. Russell highlights how the journalistic pursuit of objectivity and balance often amplifies climate denialism (32) by giving a platform to authoritative sources with vested interests in misinformation campaigns, stalling meaningful environmental discourse. That said, over the past decade, climate journalism has evolved significantly, shifting to fostering collaboration among journalists, scientists, and activists, while also embracing a more reflective approach to meaning-making. This shift highlights the profession’s flexibility, enabling journalists to pool resources, align their thinking, and adapt their approach to better address the climate crisis and its accompanying social injustices.
Despite these advancements, significant challenges remain due to corporate and political control of the media and outdated and biased journalistic practices. While big-tech companies publicly present themselves as pro-climate, they remain notably absent in advocating for stronger climate policies, thus contributing to both the pollution of the public sphere and the environment. They leverage the voices of affiliated think tanks, lobbyists, and paid pseudo-scientists echoing climate-denialism, over the voices of those on the frontlines of the impending climate crisis. Hence, the fight for social justice is inseparable from the fight for media justice, as the structural system of misinformation and greenwashing persists in undermining efforts to address the climate crisis effectively.
Chapter Two, “Noise, Incivility, and Ambivalence,” critiques the information-deficit model, which assumes more and better coverage leads to climate solutions, by exploring the social and material contexts influencing journalism and public engagement. It highlights how platformised media infrastructures and tools predict, isolate, politicise, and channel attention through data extraction practices, contributing to challenges such as noise (general user-generated disinformation amplified over facts), incivility (hostile environments for critical reporting), and ambivalence (hijacking identities and undermining serious engagement) in online climate discourse. Russell illustrates how powerful entities such as Meta, with a monopoly on media, have vested economic and political agendas and manipulate online discussions. They exploit passions to amplify disinformation, create hostility, and hijack genuine engagement, resulting in a fragmented public sphere shaped by economic and ideological forces rather than truth.
Russell further discusses the barriers preventing reliable information from rising to prominence. In particular, she highlights the role of platforms’ algorithmic sorting and long-brewing epistemic rifts in deciding what constitutes truth and what sorts of sources are trustworthy, affecting journalism and making some types of publics more possible than others. Governments and corporations compartmentalise users based on political, consumer, and behavioural data, affecting the quality of services and freedom of movement they can get. Climate activists, lawyers, and journalists, for instance, are often subjected to online government surveillance, including predictive policing (79), that complicates meaningful discourse and action around critical issues like climate change.
Russell highlights the need for a new social contract with media companies that could break their oligopoly and curb their extractive practices and misinformation practices.
Chapter Three explores what happens “After Peak Indifference”; and critically examines the intersection of climate justice, media justice, and data justice by focusing on the Fridays for Future (FFF) and No Dakota Access Pipeline (No DAPL) movements, led by youth and Indigenous groups respectively. Russell highlights how climate activism has shifted from concerns about environmental protection to framing climate change as a matter of social justice, emphasising that systemic oppression – like racism, sexism, and economic inequalities – exacerbates the climate crisis as systemic oppression exacerbates the climate crisis by making marginalised communities more vulnerable to environmental hazards through limiting their access to resources and political representation. By framing climate change as a social justice issue, activists highlight the need for equitable solutions that address these systemic inequalities.
Both movements use media to build solidarity and drive action despite facing ageism, harassment, misrepresentation, and surveillance, exacerbated by unequal media landscapes. This chapter explores how media platform user data, a vital tool for activism, also challenges the exclusive control of data by corporations and governments, which, however, raises questions about how data justice movements address freedom and privacy. Russel criticises media platforms for spreading misinformation and targeting like-minded individuals, though various campaigns such as FFF and #Black_Lives_Matter globally demonstrate that changing public mindsets is possible.
Chapter Four, “Collective Imaginary,” addresses how to overcome these unequal power dynamics and advance media justice to better tackle climate-related issues. It calls for a shift from an “individualising imaginary,” as Amitav Ghosh (139) describes it, towards a collective approach that ensures both media and the natural environment benefit from sustainable and truthful information environments.
The solution-driven critique Russell provides is robust, yet more specific and concrete recommendations for journalists, policymakers, and activists could strengthen the bridge between theory and practice.
Russell highlights the need for a new social contract with media companies that could break their oligopoly and curb their extractive practices and misinformation practices. She advocates for transforming overall journalism to emphasise equity, inclusivity, non-elitism, and accountability. She argues that community-focused news outlets could better engage the public about issues that close to home and calls for redefining liberal freedoms to prioritises collective well-being, public health, and future generations, rather than individual interests.
Ultimately, the book is a rigorous analysis of the media landscape for climate journalism grounded in real-life examples, emphasising the roles of journalists, big tech, and activists in climate communication. Grounded in both historical context and contemporary challenges, Russell’s call for media reform and a re-evaluation of freedom of speech is timely and enriches the discussion by exploring the intersection of climate change with racism and inequality, aligning with current debates on environmental justice.
While the book acknowledges that developing countries face greater challenges than developed ones, its primary focus on US media politics undermines the broader global context it stresses, limiting its global reach and applicability and raising questions about its intended audience. The solution-driven critique Russell provides is robust, yet more specific and concrete recommendations for journalists, policymakers, and activists could strengthen the bridge between theory and practice. Nonetheless, The Mediated Climate contributes significantly to the ongoing scholarly discourse on climate change. It is an ideal resource for climate journalists and activists, policy makers, media scholars interested in the media’s role in environmental justice, and anyone any environmentally minded reader.
Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image: Moniruzzaman Sazal / Climate Visuals Countdown via Climatevisuals.org. License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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