Mediated climate change politics in the post-truth era: the epistemology and performance of contested digital truth claims

When politicians make truth claims, they are usually evaluated as simply true or false, by both scholars and citizens. Claims might be about the severity of the climate crisis and evidenced with statistics and scientific models. Alternatively, they may raise concerns about the alarmism of climate scientists taking focus away from people's day-to-day difficulties and be substantiated by testimonies from struggling citizens and logical fallacies. Politicians orient truth claims to their audience and rely on shared background representations and dramaturgical devices to appear knowledgeable and authentic and to encourage citizens to identify with them. I therefore approach political constructions of digital truth claims as theatrical performances enacted in digital environments and co-performed and contested by citizens. The conditions of the online attention economy attune user practices and algorithms to favour those performances of truth claims that rely on high-activation emotion, identification, provocation and intuitive understanding rather than detailed scientific evidence. In the context of climate change, the types of truth claims performed by those who might be described as climate deniers are more likely to be effective online.

My project explores the political performance of online truth claims surrounding the UK government's Net Zero policy and citizens' engagement with such truth claims. I aim to delineate the boundaries of valid and perverted digital truth claims in a context of influential climate deniers within UK politics. However, I propose to develop a more nuanced model of the distinct elements of truth claims (including evidence, authority, truthfulness and ways of knowing) than a simple true-false dichotomy implies. In doing so, I seek to appreciate the political conditions of constructing claims and citizens' criteria for evaluating them, especially as truth claims surrounding the UK government's Net Zero policy increasingly affect people's lives and climate denialism potentially becomes more attractive.

Two key outcomes of the project will be an interdisciplinary theory of digital political performance in the context of the post-truth debate and a new early-career Network of Digital Political Performance that can further develop this emergent subfield in increasingly interdisciplinary directions. To achieve this, I will bring related but disparate fields into conversation - new media studies, political performance and political epistemology. In my research I propose to integrate and apply them to the empirical study of digital data created by politicians and citizens who engage with each other's claims and expectations about Net Zero in online public spaces. With this project, I will create a body of work - including a book, a special issue and two journal articles - that will stimulate further cross-fertilisation between these fields of scholarship.

Importantly, my research on climate-related truth claims can inform climate communication policy and strategy by third sector advocates, local authorities and national representatives. Building on existing relationships, I will work in collaboration with the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission (YHCC), involved local authorities and the Place-based Climate Action Network (PCAN) to develop recommendations for accountable, transparent and effective online climate communication and public engagement strategies. I will analyse YHCC's own claim-making on their public engagement platform and citizens' engagement with it and identify the role of local context in co-performed truth claims between stakeholders and citizens. These findings will also be applicable to other local and regional climate stakeholders within PCAN.