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Introduction
Introduction
Within the study of the environment and issue of climate change, most topics are focused on the scientific causes and effects of the issue. However, a topic that is rarely discussed within the academic sphere is how these ideas are communicated. Though scientific study and evidence are very important to the fight against climate change and its effects, if these ideas are not effectively communicated to lay climate change activists and the public, findings are condemned to being trapped in the papers of scientists to never be applied to outside actions and behaviors. In order for anything to be done about climate change, there must be active participation from the public, and that is why effective communication with the public is so important. Climate fiction may be the solution for the need for effective communication. Climate fiction focuses on fictional narratives that feature various concepts found in the climate change issue, such as anthropogenic causes, current consequences, and future ramifications. This has become increasingly popular due to the effectiveness of its communication through narrative persuasion and message communication. This website will provide the basis of the reason why climate fiction should be a prominent subject of study for communication with the more general public.
Literature Review
Literature Review
Source: Ecologise.in
"Climate Fiction" (Cli-fi) was first coined in 2007 by journalist Daniel Bloomin, and the first book considered within the sub-genre was Heat by Arthur Herzog in 1977. However, Cli-fi didn't take off until the 2010s as the genre became more mainstream. Most Cli-fi is considered within the science fiction genre as they take place in the future discussing potential societal collapse, political instability, ethical concerns, and the fallout of climate change.
Climate fiction allows writers to adapt pre-existing narrative conventions into creating messages about the climate change crisis. Cli-fi may be seen as more persuasive for a common person due to the fact that it uses "narrative persuasion". Narrative persuasion (as we will get into later) is the integration of identifiable characters and engaging events in a story to deliver a message. Narrative persuasion, as often excluded from scientific papers, allows the reader to become personally connected to the narrative, resulting in further persuasiveness of the message to resolve the consequences of climate change.
There are many other benefits of climate fiction as a method of spreading climate awareness over scientific and academic research. First, as Cli-fi is a sub-genre of Sci-fi, it allows the writer to envision a future of the consequences of climate change. As climate change is anthropogenic in cause, Cli-fi allows the writer to envision the past, present, and future of the human condition and how society, politics, and ethics may be affected due to the events caused by the issue. Second, climate change is a multicultural issue. The effects of and responses to the climate change depend on the region, local politics, and cultural tradition with attitudes toward environmentalism. Cli-fi provides a place where diverse stakeholders in the issue can envision a future of collaboration between peoples along with collective action. Finally, scientific papers often focus on singular developments and individual studies on the climate issue, causing a disconnect between consensus. Cli-fi gives a safe space for writers to hypothesis a future where multiple developments are incorporated into a single system for a more holistic solution to climate change for the understanding of the audience.
Examples of climate fiction novels
Source: Washington County Cooperative Library Services
Persuasion of the public is especially important as most sustainable solutions are pushed by public organizations and the youth. Cli-fi is able to communicate with these groups of people in a manner that is not burdened with stark lists of information and rather a motivational message. Essentially, Cli-fi can entertain the audience while presenting the necessary information needed to deal with this issue. The effects of Cli-fi have been studied before. One by Schneider-Mayerson found that almost half of Cli-fi readers surveyed communicated with their friends and family about the issue. Many were made aware of the consequences of climate change through the societal, cultural, and political impacts portrayed in the narratives.
Theoretical Framework
Theoretical Framework
My proposal focuses on the idea of climate fiction for activism through the lens of Narrative-Communication Theory (NTC), a theory that combines Communication Theory and the idea behind Narrative Persuasion. Below, I will identify each of the constructs of NTC along with examples of how they are found in climate fiction.
Speaker: The person who encodes (writes) the message through their personal experiences, language, and method of communication. In this case, the speaker is the writer of the Cli-fi piece.
Receiver: The person who decodes (reads and understands) the message through their previous experiences of the subject. This is seen as the reader of the Cli-fi piece interpreting the speaker's message.
Message: How the brain translates language from the speaker into thoughts and ideas in the audience. This is shown through the message of solving climate change and reducing environmental degradation portrayed through climate fiction text.
Channel: The mode through which the message travels (writing, voice, media) including the specific language, font, and consumption methods. This proposal focuses on literature and the book as the channel to communicate the message about climate change.
Identification: The emotional connection of the audience to the narrative's characters through experiences, emotions, and ideologies. Here, the reader relates to the characters through their motivations for enduring/preventing climate change.
Transportation: The audience's capacity to focus on the events occurring in a narrative. The events that happen in the narrative through its depiction of climate change.
Narrative Persuasion: Incorporating a persuasive message in a narrative involving character identification and plot transportation. Here, it's the message of the climate change narrative being portrayed to the reader through character and plot.
Diagram of Narrative-Communication Theory
Research Question
Research Question
Climate fiction is effective in communicating the issue of climate change and is essential for connecting with the public. However, as this sub-genre of literature was popularized rather recently, there is a lack of studies concerning this topic and its effects on readers. That is why I propose a study on the subject through the lens of Narrative-Communication Theory. I would like to understand how climate fiction influences how fiction readers view the environment and the issues of climate change.
Citations
Citations
Dahlstrom, M. F. (2014). Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with
nonexpert audiences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
111(supplement_4), 13614–13620. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1320645111
Green, M. C., & Appel, M. (2024). Narrative transportation: How stories shape how we see ourselves
and the world. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 70, 1–82.
https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2024.03.002
Harris, D. M. (2017). Telling the story of climate change: Geologic imagination, praxis, and
policy. Energy Research & Social Science, 31, 179-183.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.05.027
Johns‐Putra, A. (2016). Climate change in literature and literary studies: From cli‐fi, climate
change theater and ecopoetry to ecocriticism and climate change criticism. Wiley
Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 7(2), 266-282. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.385.
Lindgren Leavenworth, M., & Manni, A. (2020). Climate fiction and young learners’
thoughts—A dialogue between literature and Education. Environmental Education Research,
27(5), 727–742. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2020.1856345
Misner, J., & Carr, G. (n.d.). Basic Communication Theory. In Messages that Matter: Public Speaking in
the Information Age - Third Edition (pp. 28–36). essay, North Idaho College. Retrieved 2025, from
https://nic.pressbooks.pub/messagesthatmatter/.
Milner, A., & Burgmann, J. R. (2018). Climate fiction: A world-systems approach. Cultural
Sociology, 12(1), 22-36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975517725670
Moezzi, M., Janda, K. B., & Rotmann, S. (2017). Using stories, narratives, and storytelling
in energy and climate change research. Energy Research & Social Science, 31, 1-10.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.034
Morris, B.S., Chrysochou, P., Christensen, J.D. et al. (2019). Stories vs. facts: triggering
emotion and action-taking on climate change. Climatic Change 154, 19–36 (2019).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02425-6
Raven, P. G. (2017). Telling tomorrows: Science fiction as an energy futures research tool.
Energy research & social science, 31, 164-169.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.05.034
Rong, M. (2023). Climate fiction: A promising way of communicating climate change with the
general public. Studies in Social Science & Humanities, 2(2), 21-27.
https://doi.org/10.56397/SSSH.2023.02.04.
Schneider-Mayerson, M. (2018). The influence of climate fiction: an empirical survey of readers.
Environmental Humanities, 10(2), 473-500. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-7156848.
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