Creating meaning on the climate crisis: An investigation of commercial algorithms as communication participants

This project examines how Google, Facebook et al contribute to creating meaning on the climate crisis. These algorithmic information systems are invisible but omnipresent communication participants in today´s society. They filter, select and sort information, making decisions about visibility and relevance.

Through these systems, especially search engines and social media, algorithms contribute to how societies make sense of issues: they shape discourses, norms and social practices in terms of what is done and how something is done. These insights have thus far been missing from discussions on environmental issues.

The proposed project examines the increasing importance of online algorithmic information systems, such as commercial search engines and social media, in shaping (pro-)environmental discourses, norms and social practices, and how they thereby create meaning on the climate crisis.

To this end, the project conducts qualitative research to investigate how online algorithmic information systems impact meaning-making in relation to the climate crisis.

Through collaboration with societal partners, including the co-creation of interventions, this project will contribute to capacity building in public sector and civil society.

This project contributes to deepening societies´ understanding of the increasingly visible and important, yet largely unregulated, effects of digitalisation on all parts of society, including their capacity to deal with environmental issues.