Being Skeptical? Exploring Far-Right Climate-Change Communication in Germany. Issue 5 (4th July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Forchtner, Bernhard; Kroneder, Andreas; Wetzel, David
• Is Part Of: Environmental communication. Volume 12:Issue 5(2018)
• Page Start: 589
• Page End: 604
• Publication Date: 2018-07-04
• Subjects: Climate change denial -- ecology -- fascism -- global warming -- neo-Nazism -- right-wing populism; Communication in the environmental sciences -- Periodicals; 333.7
• DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2018.1470546
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1752-4032

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article explores climate-change communication by the German far right – spanning a continuum which ranges from anti-liberal democracy radical-right populists, to the extreme right and to anti-democratic neo-Nazis – and asks: how do these actors articulate the phenomenon of climate change? In responding to this question, we conduct a discourse network analysis which identifies relations between actors, objects, phenomena, and processes, and points out differences/similarities across a continuum of exemplary far-right sources. The investigated actors put forward a rather skeptical climate change narrative, even though differences exist as the significance attached to the Volk and its sovereignty, rooted in far-right ideology, sometimes overrides, and sometimes is in harmony with, their ideological-driven affinity with nature protection. We thus contribute to the growing body of knowledge on climate-change communication and, more specifically, on the link between ideology and climate-change skepticism.