How are Africans talking about climate change and who is doing the talking?

Abstract

This study identifies who is talking about climate change in Africa, both in the mainstream media and on Twitter, and analyses the key messages emerging from the different platforms. For the mainstream media, we used Google’s Global Database of Events, Language and Tone (GDELT) platform to access articles using the search terms ‘climate change AND Africa’ or ‘climate change’ and the name of all 54 African countries. We then identified the top five countries with the most articles in the sample and using random sampling, undertook a frame analysis of the articles. Regarding Twitter, we downloaded tweets containing ‘climate change AND Africa’ or ‘climate change’ and the name of all 54 African countries, identified who was tweeting and what they were tweeting about. We also identified key African climate change activists and analysed their tweets. While the nature of mainstream media coverage varies across the top five countries, a slight shift towards articles focused on adaptation and mitigation was observed, away from purely disaster narratives. Worryingly, for Twitter, very few African voices are tweeting about climate change and what they are tweeting does not draw much attention to pertinent issues on the continent in respect of climate change.