Research

The research focus of this chair is on the comparative investigation of the media debates around climate and sustainability issues, transnational communication and the change of journalism in times of digital communication.

We examine dynamics and changes of public communication processes with a special focus on the political and scientific debates about climate change and other ecological questions. With international comparisons and a focus on transnational communication flows, we describe and explain how journalism, science and other actors frame climate change as a topic as well as the implications for changes of journalism and science communication.

A particular focus is on the role of journalism, science and politics in communicating ecological transformations. We explore how and why these debates polarize and what could be done to avoid this process of discursive polarization.

Our research has initially been part of the Cluster of Excellenc "Intergrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction" (CliSAP) of the Universität Hamburg: our research group "Media Constructions of Climate Change" investigates climate communication of mass media, its preconditions and effects.

Since 2019, the focus has been on investigating the climate-related dynamics of social systems as a social science basis for plausible climate scenarios (with a focus on a permanent shift away from fossil fuels, decarbonization). This research B1 - Climate futures are socially constructed is part of the Cluster of Excellence CLimate, Climatic Change and Society (CLICCS) with its long-term research program.

You can find our various projects on our research projects page.