Environmental communication in the digital deliberative sphere: a multimodal analysis of the role of the digital publics in YouTube-mediated Taiwanese environmental discourse

Environmental communication plays a key role in representing scientific and political issues, such as climate change and environmental policy. Digital media platforms such as YouTube now play a central role in communicating environmental communication and engaging in the digital deliberative sphere. These platforms have a significant impact on shaping public opinion on political and environmental issues. For example, the 2018 Taiwanese referendum resulted in the abolition of coal and nuclear power plants and other environmental reforms being achieved, as all three proposals related to environmental issues were passed. Consequently, the Taiwanese context provides a useful case study for understanding the concrete power of the deliberative sphere in shaping environmental policy. While research in this area is growing, it often focuses on Western European and English-speaking countries, neglecting the different cultural and political contexts that contribute to global environmental problems. Moreover, there is little evidence on the digital deliberative sphere, making it difficult to identify its role and how the system works.
This thesis addresses these gaps by conducting a detailed multimodal analysis of environmental communication in Taiwanese current affairs programmes, including political talk shows, non-affiliated talk shows and in-depth reporting, mediated through YouTube. These programmes contribute to the digital deliberative system by providing non-serial forms of news media and extended discussions on platforms such as YouTube. The thesis utilises comment analysis and Up-next algorithm analysis to examine in depth the composition of publics and counterpublics, as well as the mobilisation of publics through YouTube's initial recommendation system. The results of the study show the communicative modes of the programmes in the digital deliberative system on environmental issues, the mediating role of the YouTube system (comments and Up-next algorithm) and the connections between the two. This study not only contributes to the understanding of the role of the deliberative system in media and platforms, but also provides robust evidence for policy makers and advocates working to promote environmental issues.
The thesis presents four key findings: (1) the results indicate a similarity to the siloed media logic of traditional one- or two-channel television media, with Taiwanese media remaining the dominant channels in the new media landscape, suggesting that the concept of 'totality of publics' is similar to traditional television media; (2) environmental issues exhibit varying degrees of politicisation in different programme genres, with political talk shows being the most affected, followed by non-affiliated talk shows and in-depth reporting. This politicisation of environmental issues underlines YouTube's role in mediating these issues and is associated with significant political polarisation, as a comparison of the agenda setting of the videos and the comments below them shows; (3) the practises of YouTube's recommendation system reveal a tendency to promote political radicalisation. A typical communicative practice associated with this is the use of numbers to support political arguments. For example, round numbers are often used to attract public attention, while precise numbers are used in data representation to complement and emphasise information sources or professional opinions; (4) the multimodal analysis identifies six communicative practices that aim to promote arguments by reducing content ambiguity and highlighting key points. This finding highlights the mediating role between raising public awareness and taking environmental action within the digital deliberative sphere. The study identifies an emerging deliberative system on digital platforms that offers a new approach to communicating environmental issues and influencing environmental policy through the proposed methodology.