Social cohesion and climate polarization: how to communicate effectively about climate change
4-year fully funded PhD position at the University of Groningen
Faculty of Philosophy, in cooperation with sociology
Part of the SOCION consortium
The aim of the project is to develop strategies and practically applicable recommendations for messaging effectively about climate change, whilst taking into account that the epistemic environment is heavily infused with disinformation. Effective messaging is essential for building the social cohesion needed to combat global warming and for avoiding the disruptive effects of unmitigated warming and polarization around climate change issues on social cohesion. To be effective, messaging needs to combat the factual misconceptions which are promulgated, but it should also have a depolarizing effect and help bridge divides between societal groups, making people less vulnerable to the divisive and polarizing strategies of disinformation campaigns and reducing prejudice between groups who disagree on climate-related issues.
Supervisory team:
Leah Henderson (philosophy, Department of Theoretical Philosophy, University of Groningen)
Andreas Flache (sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Groningen)