This paper puts the spotlight on the discursive practices by which politicians, interest group representatives,
and other influential public figures in effect promote climate inaction by conveying confidence in technological innovation. Data
consist of policy debates on prominent public service television in Denmark. The study uses Discursive Psychology to examine how
references to technological innovation are: (i) sequentially invoked as the solution to problematization of policies that allow
high levels of emissions; (ii) grammatically designed to highlight the force of technological innovation; and (iii) rhetorically
produced to support a subjective contrast between a pessimist and an optimist outlook. Overall, the study finds that invocation of
technological optimism constitutes a ‘ready answer’ to communicative challenges that emerge during the debates, which effectively
justifies inaction.
Anable, Jilian, and Christian Brand. 2022. “Is
the Future Electric?” In The Climate Book, ed.
by Gretha Thunberg, 271–275. London: Penguin Press.
Beck Nielsen, Søren. 2023. “Orchestration
of Perspectives in Televised Climate Change Debates.” Discourse &
Society 34 (2): 175–191.
Beattie, Geoffrey, Melissa Marselle, Laura McGuire, and Damian Litchfield. 2017. ”Staying
Over-Optimistic about the Future: Uncovering Attentional Biases to Climate Change
Messages.” Semiotica 2181: 21–64.
Billig, Michael. 1985. “Prejudice,
Categorization and Particularization – from a Perceptual to a Rhetorical Approach.” European
Journal of Social
Psychology 15 (1): 79–103.
Burke, Shanie, and Mirko A. Demasi. 2019. “Applying
Discursive Psychology to ‘Fact’ Construction in Political Discourse.” Social And Personality
Psychology Compass 13 (5):
Clayman, Steven E.2002. “Disagreements and Third
Parties: Dilemmas of Neutralism in Panel News Interviews.” Journal of
Pragmatics 391: 1385–1401.
Demasi, Mirko A.2019. “Facts as Social Action in
Political Debates about the European Union.” Political
Psychology 40 (1):
Demasi, Mirko A.2020. “Post-truth Politics and
Discursive Psychology.” Social and Personality Psychology
Compass 14 (9):
Dessler, Andrew. 2022. Introduction
to Modern Climate Change. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, Derek. 2007. “Managing
Subjectivity in Talk.” In Discursive Research in Practice. New
Approaches to Psychology and Interaction, ed. by Alexa Hepburn, and Sally Wiggins, 31–49. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
Edwards, Derek, and Jonathan Potter. 1992. Discursive
Psychology. Sage Publications, Inc.
Fox, B. and S. Thompson. 2010. “Responses to Wh-Questions in English Conversation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 43(2): 133–156.
Gifford, Robert. 2011. “The
Dragons of Inaction: Psychological Barriers that Limit Climate Change Mitigation and
Adaptation.” American
Psychologist 66 (4): 290–302.
Gifford, Robert, Karine Lacroix, and Angel Chen. 2018. “Understanding
Responses to Climate Change: Psychological Barriers to Mitigation and a New Theory of Behavioral
Choice.” In Psychology and Climate Change: Human Perceptions,
Impacts, and Responses, ed. by Susan Clayton, and Christie Manning, 161–184. Amsterdam: Academic Press.
Goffman, Erving. 1978. “Response
Cries.” Language 54 (4): 787–815.
Greatbatch, David. 1992. “On
the Management of Disagreement between News Interviewees”. In Talk at
Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 268–301. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hanson-Easey, Scott, Susan Williams, Alana Hansen, Kathryn Fogarty, and Peng Bi. 2015. “Speaking
of Climate Change: A Discursive Analysis of Lay Understandings.” Science
Communication 37 (2): 217–239.
Hutchby, Ian. 2006. Media
Talk: Conversation Analysis and the Study of
Broadcasting. Glasgow: Open University Press.
Iversen, Clara. 2015. “Hitting
the Ontological Rock Bottom. Discursive Psychology’s Respecification of the Realism/Relativism
Debate.” In Discursive psychology: Classic and contemporary
issues, ed. by Cristian Tileagă, and Elisabeth Stokoe, 29–42. London: Routledge.
James, William. 1890. The
Principles of Psychology. Volume One. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Jefferson, Gail. 1987. “On
Exposed and Embedded Correction in Conversation.” In Talk and Social
Organisation, ed. by Graham Button, and John R. E. Lee, 86–100. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Kurz, Tim, Martha Augoustinos, and Shona Crabb. 2010. “Contesting
the ‘National interest’ and Maintaining ‘our Lifestyle’: A Discursive Analysis of Political Rhetoric around Climate
Change.” British Journal of Social
Psychology 491: 601–625.
Kurz, Tim, and Annayah M. B. Prosser. 2021. “Understanding
the Social Dynamics of Climate Change through Analyses of Discourse.” Current Opinion of
Psychology 421: 71–75.
Lacroix, Karine, Robert Gifford, and Angel Chen. 2019. “Developing
and Validating the Dragons of Inaction Psychological Barriers (DIPB) Scale.” Journal of
Environmental Psychology 631: 9–18.
Lamb William, F., Giulio Mattoli, Sebastian Levi, J. Timmons Roberts, Stuart Capstick, Felix Creutzig, Jan C. Minx, Finn Müller-Hansen, Trevor Culhane, and Julia K. Steinberger. 2020. “Discourses
of climate delay.” Global
Sustainability 3, e17, 1–5.
Locke, Abigail, and Derek Edwards. 2003. “Bill
and Monica: Memory, Emotion and Normativity in Clinton’s Grand Jury Testimony.” British Journal
of Social
Psychology 42 (2): 239–256.
Nielsen, Kristian Steensen, Susan Clayton, Paul C. Stern, Thomas Dietz, Stuart Capstick, and Lorraine Whitmarsh. 2020. “How
Psychology Can Help Limit Climate Change.” American
Psychologist 76 (1): 130–144.
Parker, Samuel. 2018. ““It’s ok if it’s hidden”: The discursive construction of everyday racism for refugees and asylum seekers in Wales.” Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology. 28 (3): 111–122.
Peeters, Paul, James Higham, Diana Kutzner, and Scott Cohen. 2016. “Are
Technology Myths Stalling Aviation Climate Policy?” Transportation Research Part D: Transport
and Environment 441: 30–42.
Pomerantz, Anita. 1988. ”Offering
a Candidate Answer: An Information Seeking Strategy.” Communication
Monographs 55 (4): 360–373.
Potter, Jonathan, Alexa Hepburn, and Derek Edwards. 2020. “Rethinking
Attitudes and Social Psychology – Issues of Function, Order, and Combination in Subject-Side and Object-Side Assessments in
Natural Settings.” Qualitative Research In
Psychology 17 (3): 336–356.
Potter, Jonathan, and Margaret Wetherell. 1987. Discourse
and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour. Sage Publications, Inc.
Rejeski, David. 2019. “There’s
an App for That. Can Technology Save the Planet?” In A Better Planet:
Forty Big Ideas for a Sustainable Future, ed. by Daniel C. Esty, 112–121. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sacks, Harvey. 1972. “On
the Analyzability of Stories by Children.” In Directions in
Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by John J. Gumperz, and Dell Hymes, 323–345. New York: Rinehart & Winston.
Schegloff, Emmanuel A.1992. “On Talk and its Institutional
Occasions.” In Talk at Work. Interaction in Institutional
Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 101–134. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
Schmitt, Michael T., Scott D. Neufeld, Caroline M. L. Mackay, and Odilia Dys-Steenbergen. 2020. “The
Perils of Explaining Climate Inaction in Terms of Psychological Barriers.” Journal of Social
Issues 76 (1): 123–135.
Tileagă, Cristian. 2019. “Communicating
Misogyny: An Interdisciplinary Research Agenda for Social Psychology.” Social and Personality
Psychology Compass 13 (7): e12491.
Tileagă, Cristian, Mirko A. Demasi, and Shani Burke. 2020. “The
Discursive Psychology of Political Communication.” In Political
Communication. Discursive Perspectives, ed. by Mirko A. Demasi, Shani Burke, and Cristian Tileagă, 1–32. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Toivonen, Heidi. 2022. “Themes
of Climate Change Agency: A qualitative Study of How People Construct Agency in Relation to Climate
Change.” Humanities and Social Sciences
Communications 91: 102.
Verhagen, Arie. 2012. “Construal
and Perspectivization.” In The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive
Linguistics, ed. by Dirk Geeraerts, and Hubert Cuyckens, 48–81. Oxford: Oxford Academic.
Wiggins, Sally, and Jonathan Potter. 2017. “Discursive
Psychology.” In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research in
Psychology, ed. by Carla Willig, and Wendy Stainton Rogers, 93–109. SAGE Publications Ltd.
2024. Using formulations to maximize differences of opinion during televised climate change panel interviews. Journalism
Brooks, James & Leah Wingard
2024. Evolutions in hegemonic discourses of climate change: An ecomodern enactment of implicatory denial. Discourse & Society 35:3 ► pp. 312 ff.
Sambaraju, Rahul & Chris McVittie
2024. ‘Well, our goal is to achieve sustainable quiet and security for our people’: Negotiating calls for ceasefires in the Gaza war of 2014 in mainstream English news media by Israeli spokespersons. Journal of Social and Political Psychology 12:2 ► pp. 247 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 november 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.