Visual digital intermediaries and global climate communication: Is climate change still a distant problem on YouTube?

PLOS ONE Visual digital intermediaries and global climate communication soften the grip of editorial gatekeeping, make it easier to produce custom content, enable cit- 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement 101004509. AS, MM: Swedish Research Council grant 2021-02769. https://vr.se The funders did not play any role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, and preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. izens to seek out issues they care about in interaction with their peers, and amplify visual con- tent, which is known to engage. Empirically, however, it is not clear whether the green ghetto has lost traction online. The initial expectations did not account for the digital platforms that have such a crucial position in this communication landscape [8]. Moreover, studies of online climate communication have tended to focus on text-centred social media such as Twitter, as opposed to the swath of platforms that primarily centre on visual content (e.g. pictures, memes, and videos) such as YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok [6]. In this paper, we are interested in the role of visual platforms in global climate commu- nication and, more specifically, how they contribute to the persistence (or dissolution) of a green ghetto in public discourse online. We approach search engines and social media as dig- ital intermediaries [9,10] that mediate information flows, attention, and connection between climate communicators and audiences.

We focus on rankings (e.g. ranked presentations of content or contributors) as an area in which platform intermediation is overt. Two aspects of rankings are significant: the con- tent that platforms present at the top and the processes that produce these results. With the former, platforms articulate the scope and character of issues, and audiences easily assume that platform priorities in organising information reflect the issue’s core. With the latter, platforms mediate the processes through which issues, actors, and content become prominent, setting conditions for the broader (in)visibility of fresh voices and local con- nections. We conceive of digital intermediaries in ranking processes as encompassing agencies on several sides. On the platform side, platforms filter, hierarchise, and display content as ranked results, shaped by its politics, policies, algorithms, and affordances. On other sides, core platform doings embed in broader ranking assemblages [11]. These also invoke the (re)action of heterogeneous others such as content producers and user audiences. We argue that a comparative sensibility is crucial to advance understanding of online climate discourse and the role of digital intermediaries within it. Previous work on climate journalism in traditional media observes that the dearth of research attention to Global South contexts is problematic, not least since the societal challenges of climate change call for transnational interventions that require substantial public support [12–15]. In a parallel argu-

ment, we propose that a more differentiated knowledge base is important also in the case of online climate communication. To this end, it is crucial to consider not only the differences between digital intermediaries [16], but also within them. Although online climate commu- nication is typically studied in a single context (usually US/English), it is not obvious that the operation of a digital intermediary in one context applies more broadly. Indeed, there is rea- son to expect that ranking processes on global platforms play out differently across contexts. Both the platform itself and other actors involved in the broader ranking assemblages may do things differently across contexts. This motivates two sets of questions about digital intermediaries in global climate com- munication, and their role in perpetuating (or dissolving) a green ghetto in public discourse online: • How do global digital platforms present climate change to differently situated global publics? More specifically, to what extent are fresh voices and local connection present in top-ranked results? • Do the conditions of visibility for fresh voices and local connection in top-ranked content distribute evenly across contexts? PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318338 April 8, 2025 2/ 23