Social Media and Climate Change



Everyday life is strongly shaped by social media communication, particularly for young people. Even if these services allow people to communicate in real time around the globe, in recent years problems such as echo chambers, filter bubbles, or fake news emerged. These phenomena also affect societal discourses about topics such as climate change, leading to digital spaces with open denial of scientific facts. Due to this development, there is a need for further knowledge about the role of social media for the climate change discourse.
An interdisciplinary perspective on science education



Usage, Literacies, and Interventions from the Perspective of Science Education
Within SoMeCliCS, we apply the perspective of science education to investigate (1) the usage, (2) required literacies, and (3) possibilities for interventions to foster these competencies. Therefore, we use (4) digital methods.
Research approach
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What is social media?
Social media describes a variety of platforms, that allow to communicate with other people via internet-based services (Carr & Hayes, 2015). Within social media, different categories such as social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) and social messenger (e.g., WhatsApp, Telegram) can be differentiated.
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Why „from the perspective of science education“?
Social media is no new phenomenon, which is why many studies have already examined the role of social media. For example, big data analyses were able to investigate the effects of echo chambers (e.g., Williams et al., 2015). Nevertheless, these studies often exclude the psychological perspective of social media (Montag et al., 2016).
Science education (biology, chemistry, and physics education) are in a prominent position here, as they combine the respective content knowledge with relevant pedagogical and psychological processes. We understand the viewing and processing of subject-related content in social media as informal learning, which we investigate from a science educational point of view.
In addition to this connecting role of science didactics, researchers from the L3S support the project by developing modern computational techniques to grasp the large amounts of data.
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Why for the topic of climate change?
Even if the possible effects of climate change have been known for many years, a sufficient approach of mitigation has not been started. While the science behind the topic is complex and therefore hard to understand, people also are confronted with motivated biases that can be fostered in social media due to phenomena such as echo chambers, filter bubbles, and fake news.
Given the urgency of the topic of climate change, we believe the topic is a perfect example for unravelling the effects of social media for scientific topics. The results may therefore also contribute to a wider understanding of social media in society and illustrate ways to prepare living in modern digital societies.
Participating researchers



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Project overview
The overall project is defined by five different subprojects, which all include specific aims. First, we are interested in the usage (U) of social media for the topic of climate change. Based on this, the next package defines the required literacies (L) needed for acting competently in social media. Both packages inform possible interventions (I), describing ways to foster the literacies in formal learning contexts. All these projects are supported by the package of digital methods (DM), in which the L3S supports the research with methods from computer science.
Concerning the distribution of the project results, all projects contribute to the final package science communication (SC), which includes web visibility, own scientific conferences, and an edited volume.
Project structure
Timeline
The project started in July 2021 and will be finished in 2024. Within the first year, we establish the project and start with first research packages. In March 2022 we had our kick-off-meeting, on which we further discussed the research strategies. These will be part of the second year, which will also involve a meeting in March 2023. This second meeting will also play a major role in the edited volume. This edited volume and the finalization of the research will be a major part of the final year, which will also be ended with a final presentation and transfer of our project results.
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Subprojects
As described in the project overview, we have overall four main research packages: Usage, literacies, interventions, and digital media. Each of these projects involves own research aims, described in further detail on this page.
Usage
As a first aim of our project is to define how people and particularly students use social media for the topic of climate change. Within this aim we investigate the general role of social media (U1) and possible connections (U2) with other variables. For the role of social media, we currently apply qualitative methods for investigating how people perceive social media content in social media. As a final objective, we will generalize the results to a larger audience (U3).
Literacies
The second major aim of the project is to define required literacies for the topic of climate change in social media. For this, we first conduct a systematic literature review (L1) about relevant existing literacies and then state the literacies (L2) for students. In the final package, possible influences on these literacies are investigated (L3).
Interventions
The aim of the third subproject is to investigate possibilities to foster the defined literacies in interventions. To be able to investigate effects of these interventions, we develop a measurement instrument (I1), which then will be applied in an inquiry oriented (I2) and training oriented (I3) intervention.
Digital methods
While the packages are focused on relevant subject specific research questions, the methods require certain skills in the face of digital methods. These includes using techniques such as machine learning or eye-tracking, to uncover the role of social media for science education in a larger set of data by allowing a high resolution of the learning processes.
Science communication
For all packages, we plan different activities to communicate our results. This includes web visibility (SC1), different scientific meetings (SC2), and an edited volume at the end of the project (SC3).
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Collaborators
The project is a collaboration of the Institute for Science Education and the L3S Research Center at Leibniz University Hannover.
We also collaborate with colleagues from the Justus-Liebig-University Gießen. While the project leading is with the Institute of Science Education, we have different people working with the project. An overview of all involved people in alphabetical order and their roles can be found in the table.
Oleh Astappiev
L3SExpert for LearnWeb-platform
Dr. Alexander Büssing
Institute of Science EducationProject leader and leader subproject usage
Dr. Marco Fisicella
L3SExpert for Artificial intelligence
Prof. Dr. Gunnar Friege
Institute of Mathematics and Physics EducationLeader subproject interventions
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Kremer
Justus Liebig University GiessenLeader subproject usage
EN [Text: Kresin]
Soraya Kresin
Institute of Science EducationDoctoral student subproject usage
Dr. Stephanie Lenzer
Institute of Science EducationSubproject literacies
Dr. Ivana Marenzi
L3SProject leader subproject digital methods
Prof. Dr. Andreas Nehring
Institute of Science EducationLeader subproject literacies
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Nejdl
L3SProject leader subproject digital methods
Catharina Pfeiffer
Institute of Science EducationDoctoral student subproject literacies
Sophia Siegman
Institute of Mathematics and Physics EducationDoctoral student subproject interventions
Apoorva Upadhyaya
L3SDoctoral student subproject usage
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Information for teachers
Teachers represent one major stakeholder group for the project, as we want to equip them with required knowledge for preparing their students for acting literate in social media, particularly for the topic of climate change.
Now we are working on concrete teaching concepts. These will be published in places like Unterricht Biologie or similar as the project progresses. Two articles have been published recently.
News
Kick-Off-Symposium



The kick-off meeting of the SoMeCliCS project took place on the 10th and 11th of March 2022.
The kick-off meeting was spread over two days. The lecture evening took place on Thursday in the beautiful atmosphere of the royal stables and was streamed live on YouTube. First, Dr. Alexander Büssing gave an overview about the project under the title Perspectives on social media and Science Education: About SoMeClICS an overview of the research project. Afterwards Prof. Dr. Rogers (University of Amsterdam) talked about the communication of climate change using modern methods under the title Where is the urgency in the Climate Change Discourse. In the following discussion, these possibilities and the interdisciplinary character of the topic were emphasized.
On Friday morning, all those involved in the project had the opportunity to discuss the individual sub-projects online. In the afternoon, the focus was on the school practice of the project, with teachers presenting their perspectives and making exciting contributions. Prof. Dr. Höttecke (University of Hamburg) supported the teacher training with a lecture about climate education.
Conference 2023
Our second major conference will take place on the 9th and 10th of March 2023. More information on this will soon be available.
Publications
2022
Beniermann, A., Büssing, A. G., & Bergmann, A. (2022). I like! Soziale Medien im Biologieunterricht nutzen. Digital Unterrichten Biologie, 3(7), 3.
Büssing, A., Hamm, T., & Fiebelkorn, F. (2022). Facebook im Biologieunterricht? Social Media Beiträge als Unterrichtsmaterial einer Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung. In A. Bush, & J. Birke (Eds.), Nachhaltigkeit und Social Media: Bildung für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung in der digitalen Welt (pp. 259-285). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
Büssing, A., Pril, S., Beniermann, A., Bergmann, A., & Kremer, K. (2022). Inhaltlicher Diskurs oder Shitstorm? Analyse fachlicher Bezüge in Kommentaren eines YouTube-Videos zum Klimawandel. In A. Bush, & J. Birke (Eds.), Nachhaltigkeit und Social Media: Bildung für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung in der digitalen Welt (pp. 87-114). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
Büssing, A. G., Gruber, L., Kresin, S., & Kremer, K. H. (2022). Soziale Medien in einer transformativen Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung. In A. Eberth, A. Goller, J. Günther, M. Hanke, V. Holz, A. Krug, K. Rončević, & M. Singer-Brodowski (Eds.), Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung – Impulse zu Digitalisierung, Inklusion und Klimaschutz (pp. 92-113). Verlag Barbara Budrich.
2021
Beniermann, A., Bergmann, A., & Büssing, A. G. (2021). Ein Like für die Fachdidaktik? Potenziale und Grenzen sozialer Medien für Professionalisierungsprozesse angehender Lehrkräfte am Beispiel Twitter. In D. Graf, N. Graulich, K. Lengnink, H. Martinez, & C. Schreiber (Eds.), Digitale Bildung für Lehramtsstudierende: TE@M ‒ Teacher Education and Media (pp. 219–226). VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften.
Bergmann, A., Beniermann, A., & Büssing, A. G. (2021). Social-Media-Diskurskarten zur Förderung der Argumentations- und Diskursfähigkeit in naturwissenschaftlichen Kontexten nutzen. In M. Kubsch, N. Graulich, S. Sorge, & J. Arnold (Eds.), Lehrkräftebildung neu gedacht: Ein Praxishandbuch für die Lehre in den Naturwissenschaften und deren Didaktiken (pp. 201-205). Waxmann Verlag GMBH.
Büssing, A. G., & Fiebelkorn, F. (2021). Neue Bedrohung oder altes Geheul? Beiträge aus sozialen Medien im Kontext der Rückkehr des Wolfes nutzen. Unterricht Biologie, (469), 15-19.
Büssing, A. G., Bergmann, A., & Beniermann, A. (2021). Social Media im Biologieunterricht: Lernpotenziale sozialer Medien erkennen und nutzen. Unterricht Biologie, (465), 44-47.
www.friedrich-verlag.de/biologie/methoden-konzepte/social-media-im-biologieunterricht-9487
Hamm, T., Fiebelkorn, F., & Büssing, A. G. (2021). Social Media als Unterrichtsmedium? Eine Interviewstudie mit Schülern zum Thema "Rückkehr des Wolfes nach Deutschland". In H. Korn, J. Stadler, & R. Schliep (Eds.), Treffpunkt Biologische Vielfalt XVIII - Interdisziplinärer Forschungsaustausch im Rahmen des Übereinkommens über die biologische Vielfalt : BFN Skripten 590 (pp. 28-30). Bundesamt für Naturschutz.
2019
Büssing, A. G., Thielking, A., & Menzel, S. (2019). Can a like save the planet? Comparing antecedents of and correlations between environmental liking on social media, money donation, and volunteering. Frontiers in psychology, 10(AUG), [1989].
Project leader


30167 Hannover

