Journalists and Engagement on Twitter and Climate Change: Tweet Authors, Formats, and Content During COP25

ABSTRACT

The objective of this research is to analyze the engagement generated by tweets published from verified accounts during the COP25, and to see what place journalists occupy in the communicative flow during the event. The original tweets labeled “#cop25” and published by media, individual journalists, and other users such as NGOs and international organizations among others, were downloaded during the summit. Through a content analysis they were classified according to the type of author, the format, the type of content, and the transmitted sentiment. After calculating their engagement, significant differences were identified using non-parametric statistical tests. The results show that the tweets that generated the most engagement are those published by journalists, those that contain only text, and those that present a negative sentiment. One of the most relevant findings is that journalists can be key pieces in the communication and awareness of climate change if they are more active on Twitter. If, however, they maintain a much lower number of posts than other users, it becomes paradoxical in that those who achieve a more effective impact are not sufficiently exploiting the potential of Twitter.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• journalism
• COP25
• twitter
• social media
• engagement

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Engesser and Humprecht (2015) distinguish two types of Twitter use: quantitative, which is determined by the number of tweets published regardless of their form and content, and limited to internal links to the website of the medium itself; and the professional, who uses technological and connectivity features, and requires a certain skill level with software applications.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Banco Santander; Universidad Complutense de Madrid [grant number PR108/20-21].