Images of Extreme Weather: Symbolising Human Responses to Climate Change

dc.contributor.authorNerlich, Brigitteen
dc.contributor.authorJaspal, Rusien
dc.date.accessioned2013-07-19T09:34:00Z
dc.date.available2013-07-19T09:34:00Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.descriptionThe file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.en
dc.description.abstractExtreme weather events have been increasingly in the news, accompanied by images. At the end of 2011, when such reports were ever present, the International Panel on Climate Change published a draft report on extreme weather and climate change adaptation. This report itself was covered in the news and illustrated with images. Some of these depicted ‘extreme weather’, in particular with relation to floods, droughts and heat waves, hurricanes and ice/sea level rise. The images were studied using visual thematic analysis, with a focus on examining the way they may symbolise certain emotional responses, such as compassion, fear, guilt, vulnerability, helpless, courage or resilience. Climate change communicators have examined the way that evoking such emotions in verbal communication can lead to engagement or disengagements with the topic of climate change. However, while researchers have also become increasingly interested in climate change images, they have not yet studied them with respect to symbolising certain emotions. Various typologies of images have been proposed in the past, distinguishing for example between human and natural impact images or iconic and geographically specific images. The images studied do not neatly map onto these distinctions. They symbolise human suffering and loss and they are sometimes geographically and socially distinctive, but they are also iconic of climate change and they are symbols of its natural impacts. They all, to some extent, symbolise helplessness and may thus lead to disengagement rather than engagement with the issue of climate change.en
dc.description.sponsorshipWe are grateful to the ESRC for their financial support of project RES-360-25-0068.en
dc.identifier.citationNerlich, B. and Jaspal, R. (2014). Images of Extreme Weather: Symbolising Human Responses to Climate Change. Science as Culture. 23 (2), pp. 253-276en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1080/09505431.2013.846311
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2086/8822
dc.language.isoenen
dc.peerreviewedYesen
dc.researchgroupPsychologyen
dc.researchinstituteMedia Discourse Centre (MDC)en
dc.researchinstituteMary Seacole Research Centreen
dc.subjectextreme weatheren
dc.subjectimagesen
dc.subjectmediaen
dc.subjectclimate changeen
dc.subjectvisual analysisen
dc.subjectsocial psychologyen
dc.titleImages of Extreme Weather: Symbolising Human Responses to Climate Changeen
dc.typeArticleen

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
IMAGES OF EXTREME WEATHER JASPAL.pdf
Size:
314.18 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
3.18 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description: