PSA 📢: Just because you may be seeing less climate change–related news doesn't mean the crisis has eased. In fact, 2025 has just been recorded as the 3rd warmest year in a row & that too despite natural cooling from La Niña.
climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...
Our new report out today by @waqasejaz.bsky.social, @mitalilive.bsky.social and @richardfletcher.bsky.social looks at how audiences in 🇧🇷 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇵🇰 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 consume news and information about climate change.
💻 Report: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-chan...
🧵 Some key findings below.
Lots of people to thank for making this possible. I feel incredibily lucky to have the support at @reutersinstitute.bsky.social to keep working on this.
For the full report and many more nuanced findings:
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-chan...
Everyone has been talking about AI - so we brought it into the survey too.
What we find isn’t hype or panic, but ambivalence: people are neither clearly positive nor negative about AI’s ability to tackle climate change which seems right considering the newness of it.
On political leadership and climate: across eight countries, only around 1 in 3 say they’re confident in their political leaders climate actions. Concerning media coverage, people in Global North are more critical how media covers their leaders expecting more scrutiny and accountability.
This year we asked about Climate News User Needs and the gap is clear.
They value coverage that informs and explains climate issue but feel media can do better. It also fits with how audiences see journalistic roles here: more as educators/curators/watchdogs than e.g., gatekeepers.
Two overlapping shifts explain the drop:
1- TV is slipping as a primary route to climate news
2- the decline is concentrated among the over-45s.
And here’s the interesting bit: interest stays high in most places, suggesting it’s partly a supply/exposure problem, not simply "people stopped caring”.
New OCJN report with @mitalilive.bsky.social & @richardfletcher.bsky.social out today tracking climate news consumption across 🇧🇷 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇵🇰 🇬🇧 🇺🇸.
Last year we found a y-o-y decline in climate news use only in 🇺🇸. Worryingly, it’s now spread to 5/8 countries.
What’s going on? A thread 🧵
Research by our own @waqasejaz.bsky.social and others proves that climate journalism truly matters.
Drawing on online survey data from 🇧🇷🇫🇷🇩🇪🇮🇳🇯🇵🇵🇰🇬🇧🇺🇸 they show that mainstream news use is consistently associated with pro-climate behavioural intentions (using less energy, flying less often)
Strikingly, these mechanisms showed remarkable consistency across 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇮🇳🇵🇰🇧🇷🇯🇵🇫🇷🇩🇪.
The takeaway? Emotional responses & media trust are critical often more so than exposure alone.
Full paper: doi.org/10.1177/1940...
Couldn't have done without amazing @marysanford.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social
We found that the key isn't avoiding anxiety, but understanding the pathways to action:
➡️ Mainstream news consistently boosts intent to act.
➡️ Non-mainstream media also (but conditionally) works
➡️ Trust in media is a powerful amplifier, supercharging the link between news and the intention to act.
New Paper Alert 🧵📣
There is a growing concern that the negative valence in climate stories paralyses consumers & perhaps even prevents them from taking pro-environmental actions.
However, we found that climate anxiety is a robust and universal driver of pro-climate behavioral intentions.👇
A thread on how people's use of generative AI has changed in the last year - based on survey data from 6 countries (🇬🇧🇺🇸🇫🇷🇩🇰🇯🇵🇦🇷 ).
First, gen AI use has grown rapidly.
Most people have tried out gen AI at least once (61%), and 34% now use it on a weekly basis - roughly doubling from 18% a year ago.
New paper on news avoidance around climate change, based on data from 8 countries.
We aim to add a bit of nuance to what we already know about news avoidance in general, particularly on the association between avoidance and specific emotional responses to climate news.
doi.org/10.1177/1464...
Couldn’t have done it without insightful guidance of @richardfletcher.bsky.social and @hongtienvu.bsky.social - like most works it also suffered many rejections until it found the best possible home :)
🚨✨ Publication alert: How do people in 6 countries (🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🇦🇷 🇩🇰 🇯🇵 ) use AI 🤖 and think about it in the context of information, news, and institutions?
Our new @reutersinstitute.bsky.social survey research (n ≈ 12,000) with @richardfletcher.bsky.social & @rasmuskleis.bsky.social explores this.
How do people use generative AI in their daily lives? And how do they use it for news?
These are two of the questions we explore in a new report, based on fresh survey data from 🇦🇷🇩🇰🇫🇷🇯🇵🇬🇧🇺🇸
🔗 Full report
buff.ly/mv3Jc5r
🧵 Key findings in thread
We’re told doom & gloom 📰 makes people avoid climate news. Turns out… not really.
😟 Worry doesn’t push people away.
😡 Fear, anger, stress? Mostly irrelevant — except in India & Japan.
A little climate anxiety might actually keep people engaged.
🔗https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849251381613
What if the bigger problem isn’t people who are climate sceptics but systems that don’t care what the majority believe or want?
Wrote a piece on it arguing the real blockages lie in politics, power, and policy not in public scepticism.
doi.org/10.1016/j.co...
Also this chart from our report led by @waqasejaz.bsky.social
Read the report in full here reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-chan...
Panelists:
- @waqasejaz.bsky.social, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute's Oxford Climate Journalism Network
- @gingerzee.bsky.social, Chief Meteorologist & Chief Climate Correspondent, ABC News
RSVP here: coveringclimatenow.org/event/talkin...
Big day for us at Reuters whenever we publish our annual report & every year it comes at a time when it is so consequential for making sense of our information ecosystem. Always a pleasure seeing it develop throughout the year & some really smart ppl doing absolutely fantastic job on it. Thank you:)
Two #ICA25 presentations from @reutersinstitute.bsky.social researchers today.
1. For the early risers, me @felixsimon.bsky.social @waqasejaz.bsky.social & @rasmuskleis.bsky.social on what variables are associated with positive/negative attitudes towards the use of generative AI in news in 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇩🇰🇦🇷🇯🇵🇫🇷
Three @reutersinstitute.bsky.social presentations at #ICA25 today.
1. @waqasejaz.bsky.social Mary Sandford and me on the link between news use, climate anxiety and pro-environment behaviour across 8 countries.
If you're at #ICA25 in Denver some of our researchers inc. @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social @waqasejaz.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social and Tali Aharoni will be sharing their latest findings on subjects including attitudes to AI, news and climate, and trust in news.
buff.ly/UHFkdTz
I am all for freedom of expression etc etc but when you give platform & 3:41 mins to someone peddling anti-democratic, autocratic BS with no opposing view while headlining him "inspiring" - Can’t help but wonder if “bothsidesism” is just for when it’s convenient? 🤔
edition.cnn.com/2025/05/31/p...
BREAKING:
"Given these circumstances, we have decided not to hold another ICA conference in the United States during this administration and have delayed our contract with Chicago until May 2029."
#ICA25
We are thrilled to announce that @mitalilive.bsky.social has been appointed Director of the Reuters Institute. Mukherjee, who has been Acting Director since last October, was selected in an open process that concluded in late March
Read our full announcement
buff.ly/1beGPME
Details in thread
Climate change news use also declined in the US in 2024, as we documented in our latest @reutersinstitute.bsky.social ‘Climate Change and News Audiences’ report.
More here: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-chan...
We are thrilled to announce that Jim Egan has been selected as the next lead author of the Digital News Report.
He will support the current author, Nic Newman, through this year's process before taking the lead role in autumn 2025
Details in thread
Full announcement here
buff.ly/L2oVph9
