Shifting Climates: Climate Change Communication from YouTube to TikTok

TL;DR

This study analyzes how climate change communication differs between YouTube and TikTok, revealing platform-specific language styles and the importance of tailored messaging for effective public engagement.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of climate-related videos and comments across YouTube and TikTok, highlighting differences in language and audience interaction strategies.

Findings

TikTok videos use more emotional and action-oriented language.

Creators with diverse TikTok content receive more aligned audience responses.

Tailored communication strategies enhance engagement and message effectiveness.

Abstract

Public discourse on critical issues such as climate change is progressively shifting to social media platforms that prioritize short-form video content. Content creators acting on those platforms play a pivotal role in shaping the discourse, yet the dynamics of communication and audience reactions across platforms remain underexplored. To improve our understanding of this transition, we studied the video content produced by 21 prominent YouTube creators who have expanded their influence to TikTok as information disseminators. Using dictionary-based tools and BERT-based embeddings, we analyzed the transcripts of nearly 7k climate-related videos across both platforms and the 574k comments they received. We found that, when publishing on TikTok, creators use a more emotionally resonant, self-referential, and action-oriented language compared to YouTube. We also observed a strong semantic alignment between videos and comments, with creators who excel at diversifying their TikTok content from YouTube typically receiving responses that more closely align with their produced content. This suggests that tailored communication strategies hold greater promise in directing public discussion toward desired topics, which bears implications for the design of effective climate communication campaigns.