Exploring the cognitive and emotional impact of online climate change videos on viewers

Abstract

Climate change is a significant challenge for the international community. A significant part of addressing this challenge involves informing people about climate change to try and change behavior. Organizations like Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) use social media as a means of disseminating information about the complexities of climate science. In this study, we investigate viewers’ responses to 50 TED videos associated with climate change that are posted on YouTube. We elucidate the opinions of both speakers and viewers through sentiment analysis of 59,023 comments and negative binomial regression techniques of viewers’ reactions. The most frequently mentioned keywords are emission, temperature, environment, nature, renewable energy, and economics. The top three emotions evoked by reviewer are trust, fear, and anticipation. The issue of economics is largely responsible for triggering these emotional responses.