Table 1 Use of the media by different sides of the political spectrum

Examples: 1) ENGOs and 2) mainstream media.

Examples: 1) industry supporter pages, 2) populist outrage machines, 3) far-right media.

Summary

1. Production of longer, fact-checked, carefully constructed, often abstract documents based on climate science;

2. Examined with a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion protocols which takes longer;

2. Typically, media is shared once, from one’s own organization, often to own audiences.

1. Production of simple, catchy, shareable content;

2. Amplifying factoids, memes, messages and talking points through any/all nodes and generating high engagement (i.e. shares and comments), as well as high degrees of feedback on what sticks;

3. Increasingly unified in promoting conservative politicians, sharing videos of parliament, oriented to mobilizing votes.

Approach

-“The NGO movement and charitable sector: we are under-resourced, siloed, fragmented, undisciplined, deeply concerned and idealistic. We have principles and scruples, which do get in the way; it’s just a totally different landscape.” (Respondent, nonprofit, 2024).

-“We’re not designed or set up to just be constantly flooding the airwaves with content—it’s just not happening—people are trying to just do the good work.” (Respondent, nonprofit, 2024).

-The left “tends to look down on social media” (Respondent, academic, 2024); “personally, it makes me feel sick—I don’t really like it, and I don’t really like working in that area.” (Respondent, NGO, 2024)

-Successes seem to be random and not well-coordinated, such as a “trucker who came up with a really effective, meme-based, two-minute video, taking apart the conservative critique of the carbon tax, that got 2 million views on TikTok!” and yet was not then replicated (Respondent, academic, 2024)

-“We need to play a cultural game here. We always respond with facts, we always respond with a political economy [analysis], or we beat up on each other, we get divergent when we really need to converge.” (Respondent, nonprofit, 2024)

-“The left seems to me good at particularizing: taking policies which would benefit vast numbers of people, but instead saying, ‘Well, this is really for this particular group’ which, in a populist era, does pose constraints.” (Gunster, 2024, pers. comm.)

-“The most successful groups are actually translating. They’re translating ‘knowledge,’ which is produced in other places, whether it be by journalists, think tanks, in political speeches, and they mine the discourse for things that they can turn into a single argument, the single factoid, and then into a meme. Then, make 100 of those memes based on this particular speech or that particular thing and throw them out there and see what sticks” (Gunster, 2024, pers. comm.).

-“Repetition is another thing that these [conservative] networks get. We don’t we post one thing once. You need to be doing it again and again.” (Gunster, 2024, pers. comm.)

-“For conservatives, I found that close to 80% of climate related posts that link to external content involves essentially pushing news, in addition to amplifying simpler, sympathetic frames and narratives. This activity constitutes a form of connective leadership. This is a really important idea: they are not just communicating; they’re building networks by channeling their audiences into engagement with like-minded organizations.” (Gunster, 2024, pers. comm.)

-“The right is increasingly unified in promoting conservative politicians, and by implication, mainstream electoral politics are the key to implementing a far-right political program. That’s what they’re pushing: they’re pushing a vote message.” (Gunster, 2024, pers. comm.)

-“The right’s political communication is very effective at universalizing. Taking the stands that are in the specific interests of a very small number, and representing them as if they are in the interests of everyone.” (Gunster, 2024, pers. comm.)