Projekte

The project aims to understand opposition to norms of risk mitigation in the context of the climate crisis. It therefore introduces the notion of alternative norms – norms of measure non-compliance, critique, and protest – and interrogates the role of alternative media in the formation of such norms.

The specific aims of the project are to (1) describe the prevalence of alternative media use and norms in the context of the climate crisis; (2) identify differences between mainstream and alternative media in their coverage of norms of the climate crisis; and (3) analyse the relationship between the use of (alternative) news media and the development of (alternative) norms regarding the climate crisis within the population.

The project will combine a three-wave survey in the German-speaking part of Switzerland with a content analysis (manual and AI-based) of German-speaking mainstream and alternative news media. The survey and content data will be linked to analyse the relationship between the use of news media and the formation of mainstream and alternative norms regarding the climate crisis. The content analysis will be conducted in cooperation with the Research Center for the Public Sphere and Society and the Linguistic Research Infrastructure at UZH.

The results will add a nuanced understanding of the process of norm formation in times of crisis by disentangling influences of mainstream and alternative media in different societal groups. These findings are more relevant than ever given that humanity is facing multiple severe crises that require a tremendous collective effort to mitigate a global polycrisis.

Runtime: 2024-2027
Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
Principal investigator: Dr. Sarah Geber (UZH)
Project partners: Dr. Daniel Vogler (UZH), Prof. Dr. Gerold Schneider (UZH)