A Communicational Disconnect: Establishing Superordinate Identities in Climate Communication Through Transgenerational Responsibility

ABSTRACT

This paper explores opportunities for intergenerational communication to foster collective climate action and justice. While climate change communication can be framed as a site of intergenerational conflict and blame, we consider how the concept of superordinate identities offers rhetorical possibilities for generational coalition building to ultimately facilitate joint climate action.

KEYWORDS:

• Science communication/environmental communication
• superordinate identities
• intergenerational communication
• climate change rhetoric

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Following Elliott (2022), we consider generations to be “a category of practice, often a murky one, that is made and remade through plural and often contentious scientific and public discourses” (p. 88).

Additional information

Funding

This article draws on research supported by the Canada Research Chairs program; Government of Ontario Early Research Award; Mitacs Gloablink Research Award; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [Insight Grant]. 

Notes on contributors

Julia Aylin Lehnert

Aylin Lehnert joined the Demos Lab at the University of Waterloo through a Mitacs Globalink internship and has been interested in studying cross-group climate change communication from a psychological and interdisciplinary perspective.

Sara Doody

Dr. Sara Doody is a Postdoctoral Fellow who studies how inter- and transdisciplinary teams of scientists collaborate and communicate research both within teams and to the public more generally.

Justin Steinburg

Justin Steinburg is a graduate of the Master of Climate Change program at the University of Waterloo, and engages in a broad range of climate awareness, including leading Climate Fresk workshops.

Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher

Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher is a Canada Research Chair in Science, Health, and Technology Communication at the University of Waterloo. She is also the inaugural Co-Director, with Donna Strickland, of the Trust in Research Undertaken in Science and Technology (TRuST) network.