| Chapter 1: | Reinventing the Political |
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shake the edifice of politics and the relations between politicians and citizens.
This exploration of connections between communication and the political includes analyses of how people represent, construct, and circulate ideas about climate change and of how these practices translate into decisions and public policies, as well as how they relate to political identities. Given the multifaceted nature of climate change, multi- and interdisciplinary approaches are needed to understand different dimensions of the issue and their interconnections. Drawing on a variety of research fields, from media and political sociology to popular education, this book initiates a dialogue between theoretical traditions that enrich the comprehension of relations between communication and the politics of climate change.
The chapters in this book examine various forms of climate change communication: in artistic expression ranging from installations to cinema, in web-based spaces and in alternative—that is, nonmainstream—media. They analyze a range of semiotic resources and practices within which the meanings of climate change are negotiated. All chapters examine social transformation as it links with communication practices, or how issues are managed and by whom based on certain hegemonic discourses. They describe ways some discourses become hegemonic and others are marginalized and how this shifting symbolic landscape translates into political subjectivity. By looking at the multiple ways people experience and represent climate change, we take the analysis beyond the cognitive to include emotional, aesthetic, and other epistemologies that shape political engagement with this issue.
In this chapter we first explore how the ironic position of politics in a society that has been labeled postpolitical constrains climate change politics. We then suggest how citizen engagement may reinvigorate the democratic potential of politics by redirecting attention. Finally, we offer a preview of the cases analyzed here, which illustrate possible routes for this redirection.