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- 01 Mar 2013
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Issues related to climate change have dominated the global agenda for a considerable amount of time. The discursive struggles over the meaning of climate change and the problematisations it entails have a similarly long lifespan. Invested with antagonisms, the notion of climate change circulates in a variety of societal fields, including academia, politics, everyday life, and – the focus of this paper – the media.
The starting point of our article is that the discourse of climate-change-as-problem (i.e., a discourse the articulates climate change as a phenomenon that requires attention, resources, and thought) has become hegemonic, even though the exact nature of the problem – and of required measures and their implementations – remains highly contested. Nevertheless, the ideological dominance of this interpretative frame motivates different societal fields to organise responses to this acute problematisation and to assist in searching for solutions (however imperfect), thereby protecting the hegemony of climate-change-as-problem. In the case of the media field, we can see an increase of media content production that deals with human–nature relations, witnessed by a rise in popularity of the (sub)genre of the environmental (or green) documentary (Duvall, 2017). In this article, we focus on two Swedish non-fiction television series:
Our interest in these two television series is particular. In the hegemonic context of climate-change-as-problem, these series are interventions that aim to protect and strengthen this hegemony, but also to translate this hegemonic discourse into material social action (“solutions”). Within a democratic context – Sweden – the series become examples of the ideology of persuasionism, where a diversity of arguments is used to achieve the change deemed necessary. Persuasionism is a fairly uncommon concept, used in rhetoric, (social) marketing, and political theory, to refer to the ideological project that motivates and legitimates active intervention of key social actors in the construction of social reality. As Andreasen (1995: 11) writes: “Thus, the goal of the persuasionist is to discover the careful arguments and motivational hot buttons that will get the educated consumer to ‘get off the dime’”. Persuasionism thus defends the use (and necessity) of communication to change preferences (O’Mahoney, 2017) to attempt to generate hegemonic consensus (e.g., about the discourse of climate-change-as-problem). Hardly used in communication and media studies, this concept can still be seen as a less judgmental version of the “manufacturing consent” argument (Herman & Chomsky, 1988). Its focus on change also aligns it with discussions on social responsibility and pro-social influence of media (see Christians et al., 2009; McQuail, 1992). We should note that there are many different levels of persuasion in persuasionism. We use it here in a democratic context, but persuasionism has also been used to describe much harsher social interventions, for instance, by Mao (1997: 678) to describe Soviet prison practices.
Arguably, one vital component of persuasionism is the construction of the identity – or, in the discourse-theoretical vocabulary, subject position – of the actors involved in the mediation process, namely experts, ordinary people, and media professionals. Persuasionism, for instance, can have the change of subject positions as its objective. Some subject positions also legitimate the use of persuasionist strategies. Our analysis looks into the construction of these subject positions and how this construction is structured by, and conducive of, persuasionism. Through the deployment of persuasionist strategies, the television series aim not only to have (ordinary) people identify with the climate-change-as-problem discourse, but also to align their material behaviour accordingly.
To support our analysis of the two Swedish television series, we rely on Laclau and Mouffe’s (1985/2014) discourse theory (DT) as a theoretical toolbox. DT provides us with a conceptual lens that combines the instability, versatility, and performativity of subject positions (from which statements are made), but also the (attempted) hegemonisations and fixations of these subject positions, thus allowing us to unpack the workings of discursive power. Indeed, DT views discourse not only as language use at the microlevel, but as structured ideological representations (Carpentier & De Cleen, 2007; Glynos & Howarth, 2007). Discourses are constructed through the practice of articulation, which combines elements from the broad discursive field – a reservoir of available meanings – into a structured totality: Consider, for instance, the way in which the signifier “carbon footprint” may (or may not) be incorporated into a discourse on climate. This example is helpful because it immediately highlights the inherent contestability and unfixity of discourses, where they can always be undermined by attempts to change their particular articulations and where they are challenged by competing discourses. Articulation, therefore, can also take the forms of rearticulation and disarticulation, where various discourses seek to appropriate elements of each other in the Gramscian mode of a “war of position” (Mouffe, 1979/2014), creating the dynamic process of discursive struggles. In DT, the social field is thus seen as “crisscrossed by antagonistic forces” (Torfing, 1999: 101), bringing relations of difference to the front of discourse analysis.
Relations of difference are central to DT, and they also inform DT’s particular perspective on identity formation. Two points about identity are specifically relevant. First, inspired by Lacanian psychoanalysis and Foucauldian discourse analysis, DT views the subject as split and, consequently, consisting of a plurality of subject positions that together constitute an always incomplete subject. Laclau and Mouffe (1985/2014: 101) define these subject positions in the following terms:
Whenever we use the category of “subject” in this text, we will do so in the sense of “subject positions” within a discursive structure. Subjects cannot, therefore, be the origin of social relations – not even in the limited sense of being endowed with powers that render an experience possible – as all “experience” depends on precise discursive conditions of possibility.
Hence, there is no stable single identity, but a series of subject positions (articulated in discourses), offered for identification to subjects. An individual, in this sense, generates their subjectivity by identifying with many, always particular, subject positions – the expert, the worker, the woman, the citizen, and so on – which enable their representation and provide a “horizon of social orientation and action” (Torfing, 1999: 101). These subject positions themselves are not stable, as they feature in different discourses and receive their different (and sometimes contradictory) meanings. For instance, what it means to be a consumer varies significantly, depending on this signifier’s embeddedness in an anthropocentric or an ecocentric discourse. Still, similar to discourses, subject positions are also subjected to hegemonising tendencies and persuasionist strategies that aim to fixate the meaning of these signifiers in a particular way. In the same example of the consumer, we can see how the discursive-material assemblage of capitalism has fixated the subject position of the consumer, rendering it difficult (but not impossible) to articulate the subject position of the consumer with an ecocentric discourse.
Second, the negative relationality of identity constructions implies their necessary articulation against external others – their
The mediated construction of experts, ordinary people, and media professionals has received considerable attention in the academic literature in and beyond the field of media studies. This enables us to briefly revisit their articulations and mutual dependencies. While some analyses of the articulations of expertise are rooted in an essentialist reading of what it “is” (Chi et al., 2014), other accounts emphasise the performative character of the notion (Johri, 2015). Studying mediated representations of experts on Belgian television, Carpentier (2011: 191) argues that knowledgeability (contrasted with having opinions) is the key trait of an expert subject position, which is in turn supported by their embeddedness in a particular professional and institutional context, often made explicit to the viewer. For instance, Thornborrow (2001) argues that – in audience participation programmes – the names, positions, and institutional affiliations of individuals that are placed in expert (subject) positions become accentuated.
A recent study on the mediation of expertise on climate change in the UK (Coen et al., 2021) identified its expressions in claiming the entitlement to knowledge, the use of expert language, the construction of statements as factual, appeals to common sense, and the presentation of solutions. At the same time, the very content of expert statements on climate change varies depending on the political and cultural context. Expert interventions in the media in many European countries tend to take an alarmist tone in arguing for climate change action, as previous studies have shown in Austria (Hermann et al., 2017), Britain (Schmid-Petri & Arlt, 2016), Germany (Grundmann & Scott, 2014; Taddicken & Reif, 2016), and – especially importantly for our article – Sweden (Berglez et al., 2009). Other contexts have seen a stronger presence of climate change sceptics – for example, in the US (Boykoff, 2013), but also France (Grundmann & Scott, 2014). These discrepancies in framing one of the central issues of our time point to the need for analysing how expertise is performed, how the subject position of an expert is assumed, and how legitimacy for the expressed statements is constructed.
The subject position of the media professional may be considered a partial extension of the subject position of the expert, since expertise is articulated into media professionalism in terms of professional and technical knowledge (Chen, 2020: 75). Drawing primarily on a Chinese media context, Chen also singles out the storyteller as a nodal point in the media professional subject position, which consists of creating a narrative flow and connecting to the audience, but also performing the media professional identity through bodily positionings, styling, and dress. Another nodal point of the media professional subject position (in relation to news production) consists of upholding journalistic values, unpacked in the hegemonic discourse through objectivity (Carpentier, 2005; Deuze, 2005; Raeijmaekers & Maeseele, 2017; Westerståhl, 1983), autonomy (Berkowitz, 2009; Berkowitz et al., 2004; Deuze, 2005), belonging to a professional media organisation (Carpentier, 2005), and a differential position towards the audience (see Filimonov, 2021: 68). The diversity of these ways to construct the media professional subject position (and the diversity of the articulations of their nodal points) is captured in some typologies of journalistic milieus Most typologies use a different language, but can still be easily integrated in the DT approach we are using here.
In turn, the subject position of the ordinary person can be seen as the constitutive outside of the expert and the media professional subject positions. Although the frontier between experts and media professionals on the one hand and ordinary people on the other is not rigid but contextually dependent (see, e.g., Eriksson & Thornborrow, 2016, on the rise of the “ordinary expertise”), traditional media representations of ordinary people tend to articulate them as non-elite, while experts and media professionals are positioned as societal elites, with different forms of capital (Carpentier, 2014). In this representation, ordinary people are opposed to experts and media professionals (by being disarticulated from expertise and knowledge), to celebrities (by being disarticulated from fame), and, more generally, to the category of newsworthiness (Syvertsen, 2001; Turner, 2010).
The supposed lack of knowledge, coupled with apathy and denial, is one particularly persistent pattern of citizens’ representation in relation to the climate agenda (Carvalho, 2010; Höppner, 2010). Moreover, the media representation of ordinary people follows the double pattern of aggregation and individualisation. On the one hand, ordinary people may be represented as an atomised mass, without knowledge and power (Carpentier, 2011). On the other hand, there is a pattern of individualisation, which disconnects ordinary people from the embeddedness in societal institutions, again in contrast to members of societal elites whose institutional affiliations are emphasised.
The construction of ordinary people as powerless and unknowledgeable justifies social control; for instance, public shaming of individuals involved in minor crimes by news media has been studied as a disciplining phenomenon of the digital age (Hess & Waller, 2014; Waller & Hess, 2011). In relation to the climate, this pattern has recently been discussed in light of the Swedish neologism flygskam [flight shame], which refers to instilling a sense of guilt in the members of the public for choosing to use airplanes as their mode of transportation, thereby contributing to CO2 emissions in the atmosphere (Becken et al., 2021; Chiambaretto et al., 2021; Mkono, 2020).
Our study is based on the analysis of three episodes each of two television series,
The popular-scientific series
As previously mentioned, our selection relied on theoretical sampling, as we were interested in the construction of particular subject positions in the two television series in general, and how they connected to persuasionism in particular. This resulted in a selection of the (theoretically and thematically) most relevant episodes. We then applied a discourse-theoretical analysis (DTA) (Carpentier & De Cleen, 2007; Van Brussel et al., 2019). DTA uses DT as theoretical foundation, but combines it with an abductive research strategy, which is based on an iterative procedure of theory selection, data collection, and analysis, and a subsequent theory refinement with the help of the gathered data (Reichertz, 2019). Thus, the researcher remains focused on a particular theoretical problem while allowing the data to unveil new narratives about the social reality at hand.
In our case, the abductive strategy consisted of the following steps. First, upon the completion of the transcription process, the theoretical categories stemming from discourse theory were established (subject positions, discourse, and articulation) and their specific properties in relation to the case study were tentatively defined. We were primarily interested in the positions of experts versus ordinary people, and the place of the presenter in that relationship. Second, the academic literature in relation to the respective subject positions was reviewed to identify possible articulations. Third, a qualitative content analysis was performed on the data, consisting of iterative cycles of breaking down the material into categories and codes that answered our research question: How are subject positions constructed in the television series and how is this construction structured by, and conducive of, persuasionism? Here, we were interested in elements that constructed their subject positions, such as the statements the participants and presenter made, their vocabularies, the ways they were labelled, addressed, and interacted, and the material setting in which the scene was recorded. Fourth, completing the abductive circles, we reviewed the properties of the previously chosen theoretical categories, adding the missing elements which emerged from the data (more specifically, including the subject position of the media professional). The analytical output was then divided in three parts, each corresponding to one of the key subject positions from our analysis.
The construction of the subject position of the expert is primarily evident in
The experts are primarily articulated as knowledge producers who are authorised and legitimated to persuade the viewers through rational argumentation. The way the experts communicate their knowledgeability and perform persuasionism has a logic that largely overlaps with Entman’s (1993) well-known framework of journalistic framing: providing a problem definition, suggesting their own evaluation, presenting solutions, and adding a moral assessment about what course of action is considered proper. These moral judgements demonstrate that also experts are part of hegemonic processes (which is not necessarily problematic), and that absolute neutrality cannot be achieved.
Once the problem is defined, the experts are invited to provide their evaluation, which they sometimes do in categorical terms: “A bag used for a quarter of an hour will probably last for 100 years. This is very unreasonable” (Bethanie C. Almroth, BF-E3); “Dumping all that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is simply not sustainable” (Frances H. Arnold, BF-E1). In addition to problem definition and evaluation, the experts are articulated as people in position for providing a moral judgment: “It’s really important as human beings, as people living on this planet, that we have to respect it”; “The way we dispose of the plastic is very irresponsible”; “If you see someone throwing garbage out, give them the murder look” (Melanie Despeisse, BF-E3). Finally, the expert subject position is unpacked in terms of providing remedies. At times, this is made in a solutionist logic, for example, as the geologist Sandra Ósk Snæbjörnsdóttir (BF-E2) says: “The most important thing to keep in mind is that we have the solutions. We just have to use them to solve the climate crisis”. As individuals with tools to solve the most challenging and complicated problems, the experts are close to being represented as magicians: “I think this technology is getting quite powerful, like magic” (Melanie Despeisse, BF-E3).
Subjectified as individuals equipped with extraordinary problem-solving capacities, and without structural discrepancies in the knowledge they (collectively) communicate, the experts are delegated the authority to provide recommendations for ordinary people, as they directly address the audience and actively encourage them to change their behaviour, in the following terms:
Our planet is being overrun by our waste products and we definitely need to invent new ways of behaving. Each and every one of us has to stop buying so much stuff, we have to stop eating so much meat, driving so much in our cars and flying so much in our planes. One of the messages that I have for people is: When you see that waste, go pick it up. It doesn’t cost you much energy, much effort to do it, but it really makes a difference. Maybe you are not the cause of the problem, but you can pick it up. I like to tell people: please be an everyday hero and collect it. That’s it. It’s that easy.
In particular (and certainly influenced by the target audience of the series), young adults are allocated agency to implement these changes, without moving outside the power dynamics of the programme, where the experts still set the stage through their recommendations. On one occasion, a scientist looks directly in the camera, addressing the imaginary audience: “I think the true heroes are the new generation. It’s you who will come up with new ideas, and test and question the way people have done things” (Robin Teigland, BF-E3). This sentiment was echoed in another episode as well: “For the young people, the world will be the world that you create. And you have to be involved in its creation” (Frances H. Arnold, BF-E2).
Moreover, the expert subject position is constructed through a number of other characteristics that also strengthen their persuasionist capacities. First, credibility was deemed crucial. This was emphasised by Producer 1: “[The audience members] want to know who this expert is, why he is talking in this programme and how he is entitled to say this and to have credibility in this topic”. In order to accentuate the reliability of the interviewed scientists, the series puts an emphasis on their presentation. All of them are called by their full names, and their affiliation – either to universities or industrial research projects – is clearly indicated. Although only a handful of the respondents in the analysed episodes are said to be working in academia, their academic titles – doctor or professor – are also provided (in the three episodes, there is only one interviewee without a formal academic title). As Producer 1 explained in our research interview, “If you are a doctor or professor, it kind of gives credibility and a level to the programme, to take it seriously”.
The experts are also constructed as such through the language they use, and more specifically through the comprehensibility and eloquence of their interventions (as we will show, especially the appearance of the experts in
The subject position of the expert is furthermore articulated through the qualities of humbleness and generosity – in other words, the ability to engage in a societal discussion and education on equal terms with the public.
It demands a lot of me but it also demands a lot of them to be open and to not be too, how do you say, protective of what they know […] The purpose has to be here and to not have a big ego about it. And I am happy we could find these people that… you know, even the Nobel prize winners put their ego aside to answer these questions to make this programme as good as possible.
Lastly, the subjectification of the experts is strengthened by the visual aesthetics, which allows for the most immediate performance of the subject position. The scientists appear to be interviewed in formal settings such as offices, and some wear suits or dresses. Furthermore, their interviews are intermeshed with video fragments where the interviewees and their colleagues can often be seen working in laboratories or construction sites, wearing professional protective equipment (see Figure 1).
Figure 1
Researcher Melanie Windridge at a construction site (BF-E1)
As discussed earlier, the expert subject position – as can be found in
The “ordinariness” of the
The positions of the ordinary people in
Figure 2
The representations of diversity as part of the ordinary people subject position in KPK
While the palette of characteristics of ordinary people is rich,
I have come to realise that my long-haul travel does the environment a disservice.
OK. And are you going on any long-haul travel this summer?
No, it will be within Europe. Though Israel is not in Europe, I just realised.
No.
No, there will be one [trip] outside of Europe.
OK. What would have made you not take the plane then?
If they arranged some kind of high-speed trains, like they have in Asia, or the politicians are saying that we are now going to decrease flights because of remorse, then I would absolutely think about that […]
But if there were other alternatives and other destinations, would that have been a solution? A so-called staycation?
The “staycation” theme remains present in other interactions of the host with the programme’s participants: Not only Jennie, but also others are encouraged to change their travel habits and visit domestic destinations instead of going abroad.
The subject position of ordinary people is also supported by a series of aesthetic features that construct it as different from experts and the production of knowledge. Also here, the stylistic contrasts with the representation of experts in No, but then I’m thinking like this, that yes, but it’s gonna get better ‘cos the sun has its spots, I often think. Now we are maybe in the warmer part, you know. And I don’t know. It’s like this, we used to think that the Earth was flat, and now, like… And I know that scientists… I know 100% that it’s really bad with the environment, but I always think that everything will be fine.
The third subject position is that of the media professional, in particular the presenter. This subject position is especially visible in
The articulations and performances of the presenter in
Furthermore, the presenter expresses sympathy for the other “ordinary people”, such as a driver whose car is blocked by Extinction Rebellion activists in KPK-E1 (“I would have been so angry if I were the guy who’s sitting next to me in the car right now”). He also demonstrates his relatability in KPK-E3 by admitting his modest apartment size, which he says amounts to 35 square metres. His humility also comes forward through the careful selection of words for expressing his opinion (KPK-E1): “
The iterative association with ordinary people in An informal Swedish name for Mallorca – here, used mainly in an ironic way. Trelleborg, in southern Sweden, is known for its imported palm trees, although the programme participants do not show awareness of this fact. [My] gut feeling tells me that it makes a difference to be aware and think about one’s travel and to opt out of the flights and to take the train instead and even [opt out of] the very purchase. So, in a way, I think that it still makes a difference. I should probably be more aware and think twice before I travel anywhere. Perhaps I should skip that New York trip and stop buying new stuff and throwing plastic here and there.
In
The articulation of the media professional in
The representations of the three subject positions in the Swedish television series on climate change are grounded in the opposition of experts versus ordinary people, while the subject position of the media professional plays a mediating role, without giving up on their articulations as powerful and knowledgeable (in relation to media production). As the analysis above shows, the articulations of these three subject positions are constituted out of multiple elements. For this reason, summarised results of the analysis are presented in Table 1. The articulations of these three subject positions, when compared with the literature, appear to be quite stable over time and place, at least in a Western context, even if some divergences do occur. The crucial distinction between elite and non-elite subject positions – or, in other words, between the power bloc and ordinary people (Hall, 1981) – can be considered hegemonic. It is also very present in both programmes analysed.
Mediated representations of three subject positions in television series on climate change
| Actors of persuasion and change | Objects of persuasion and change | Actor and organiser of persuasion and change (“critical change agent”; Hanitzsch, 2011) | |
| Provider of advice and moral judgment | Recipient of advice and moral judgment | Provider of advice and moral judgment | |
| Active | Mostly passive (but still empowered to speak) | Active (e.g., as gatekeeper) | |
| Speak from the position of authority and knowledge, with a singular perspective | Diverse opinions (as opposed to “knowledge”) | Bridges the experts and the ordinary people, but authoritative and knowledgeable in relation to media production | |
| Autonomous | Influenceable | Autonomous | |
| Credible (full names, titles, affiliation, awards) | Mostly anonymous | Credible (full name, role in the production process in credits) | |
| Specialised jargon, confident, well-spoken | Colloquial language use, nervous, inconsistent | Translator of jargon, confident, well-spoken | |
| Professional | Private | Hybrid | |
Arguably, these constructions support a democratic version of the ideology of persuasionism, where credible voices need to be mobilised but also created to allow for the process of persuasion to take place. Moreover, they position media professionals as mediators between experts and ordinary people, ensuring the translation of (often complicated) academic discussions in eloquently formulated and comprehensive arguments. But these particular constructions do come with limits, as the construction of the subject position of ordinary people, however empowered they are, still locks them into a more passive role, engulfed by multitude. Secondly, the individualisation of climate change accountability, which follows from the focus on ordinary people, brings the series – in particular,
Figure 1
Figure 2
Mediated representations of three subject positions in television series on climate change
| Actors of persuasion and change | Objects of persuasion and change | Actor and organiser of persuasion and change (“critical change agent”; |
|
| Provider of advice and moral judgment | Recipient of advice and moral judgment | Provider of advice and moral judgment | |
| Active | Mostly passive (but still empowered to speak) | Active (e.g., as gatekeeper) | |
| Speak from the position of authority and knowledge, with a singular perspective | Diverse opinions (as opposed to “knowledge”) | Bridges the experts and the ordinary people, but authoritative and knowledgeable in relation to media production | |
| Autonomous | Influenceable | Autonomous | |
| Credible (full names, titles, affiliation, awards) | Mostly anonymous | Credible (full name, role in the production process in credits) | |
| Specialised jargon, confident, well-spoken | Colloquial language use, nervous, inconsistent | Translator of jargon, confident, well-spoken | |
| Professional | Private | Hybrid | |