“It’s too much!” - Why might we need different forms of content for climate communications?

So you open your phone. What do you open first? Instagram or Facebook, to see what your friends have been up to? LinkedIn, to check updates from within your network or read new opinions? Spotify, to listen to your favorite podcast? Or a website to check for stories and recent news articles about the world? 

This is one of my favorite questions to explore. For me, it depends. Sometimes I open my phone or computer and immediately start one of my favorite podcasts, most recently  “The Rest is History” or “OxPods”. Or on other days, I will jump straight to Instagram to see what my friends and favorite organizations have been sharing. The best part about this question is that there is no single right answer (no matter what anyone else tells you) because we all prefer different ways to receive and share information.

When I first stepped into the role of Media Director for Oxford Climate Society, we were using two main platforms: Instagram and Facebook. This simply wasn’t enough. Now don’t get me wrong, these platforms are still central to the way we share information about our society, but as OCS began to focus more on the education side of climate change, I realized our communications strategies had to shift, to expand in order to reach our diverse and growing audience. 

I wanted to reflect on the process of expanding our social media beyond just Instagram and Facebook. Throughout this piece, I will be exploring how numerous social media and content platforms are necessary for effective climate change advocacy and education, when used strategically. 

We had to consider how platforms such as our blog and School of Climate Change (an 8-week educational course on climate change) now have participants from all over the world, including, most recently, two blog writers from Bangladesh. We had to consider how our communication strategies had to expand to reach these new and growing local, regional, national, and international audiences. 

Climate change media coverage, historically, has not been the most positive. This has resulted in climate fatigue which can be described as a “sense of overwhelm, apathy, or disengagement that arises from prolonged exposure to information about the climate crisis”. For example, Lu et al (2022) finds that people who already feel worn down by constant climate messaging can have lower compassion and weaker willingness to support climate change mitigation, even after one brief exposure to stronger messaging.

So here’s the question: how can organizations such as the Oxford Climate Society expand their reach while also recognizing that our audience may already feel overwhelmed by climate messaging?

As an undergraduate just stepping into the role of Media Director, I quickly learned that the answer to the question above is to be strategic. Climate communications is not just about posting content but about the responsibility in the choices we make: what we are presenting and how we are presenting it. Over the following two sections, I will explore this further through Oxford Climate Society’s own media strategy, specifically the strategic choices we have made to begin our “Positive Climate News” campaign and OCS Blog. 

Positive Climate News

Hope is powerful. The kick-starting of our “Positive Climate News” campaign was a conscious choice to highlight the impact people can make to fight the climate crisis. This is, in some ways, an attempt to reduce potential climate fatigue in our audience by providing them with hope rather than despair about the future. This strategy follows research that focusing on positive news can inspire hope in young people, providing productive forms of coping with climate stress. Even if hope does not immediately motivate action, it may still encourage people to engage with and learn more about climate change when they feel optimistic about the future. And we have seen this impact through engagement in our positive climate news campaigns, receiving over 2000 views consistently for each post. 

Our feedback has kept us positive as well. This is important because we cannot just rely on the numbers to demonstrate the success of a new strategy. Our audience, through in-person conversations and online responses, have stated that they always look forward to our positive climate headlines every two weeks and consistently read through the headlines to brighten up their day. Some even now look for additional positive climate news to continue to take a positive stance on climate solutions. 

Our positive climate news campaign demonstrates that strategic communications and correlated results can have an impact in climate spaces. Climate news doesn’t always bring stress; positive news still brings hope, no matter which field. 

The OCS Blog

The Oxford Climate Society Blog provides a different purpose. Our blog includes insights into current climate developments, reflections on various climate solutions, and stories of adaptation and resilience in the face of climate change. As Moezzi et al (2017) explains, stories are useful because they reorient climate change towards relationships, in particular between people and things, the past and present, etc. They also provide relatable narratives that allow readers to better grasp complex, interconnected topics and can explore the implementation of different solutions. 

That is what OCS focuses our blog on. For example, Gugulethu Mahlangu shares and reflects on her own journey in adapting to climate change in South Africa. Her reflections present a pathway for our readers to understand how and why she implemented aquaponics farming, making its benefits and drawbacks more clear. Anthony Lanzillo took their blog in another direction, exploring how the actions and skills of climbers can offer inspiration for how we look towards the future of climate change. He explains that the “difficult terrain, unpredictable weather, altitude sickness, extreme temperatures, and the risks of falling” provide opportunity and a mindset for greater self-awareness and critical adaptation. Lanzillo demonstrates how stories, such as his experience climbing, can allow us to reflect and better approach climate change in new ways. 

By providing a space for a diversity of writers to share their stories through the Oxford Climate Society Blog, we provide authenticity, connection, and a clearer pathway to navigate the complexity of climate change. This is a unique aspect that other forms of media may not offer. 

Concluding Thoughts

Writing this article was a top priority for me. It has also allowed me to reflect on how the media team has expanded. And by reflecting on our current media approaches, I am taking my own argument into action. Reflection ensures that each choice made within the media team is strategic and thoughtful towards the overall purpose of the society: to educate. 

Now as I sign off as Media Director for the Oxford Climate Society, I take the following lesson to heart; more news is not necessarily a bad thing and a diversity of social media platforms can be strategically utilized to engage people with the climate crisis. So we hope to bring positive climate news and thoughtful stories on whichever platform you view in the morning when you open your eyes.

Written by Sophie Williams

Oxford Climate Society Media Director ‘24-’26