How do transnational public spheres emerge? Comparing news and social media networks during the Madrid climate talks

Abstract

In this study, we explore two parallel networks of discourse during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations of 2019 in Madrid (25th Conference of the Parties, COP25): one produced by news media coverage of the talks; the other by Twitter users who shared news content about the talks. Findings show that transnational public spheres can emerge out of relatively homogeneous moments internal to networks and external to networks (i.e. across multiple networks) at the intersection of certain actors and topics, cultural practices, and commercial and non-commercial (state) institutions. Yet there are persistent divisions along language, geographic, and other lines that encourage the formation of distinct micro-spheres of networked actors (internal heterogeneity), as well as distinct media practices that work to differentiate mass media networks from networks produced by a different set of publics on social media (external heterogeneity).