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Citizen Voices explores the ways in which citizen voices on science and environmental issues are articulated, heard, marginalized, and silenced in mass media, policymaking, and other public venues. In a range of case studies from countries across Europe and North America, contributors offer empirical insights about the articulation of citizen voices, as well as citizens' scope for action in different national, cultural, and institutional contexts. Drawing on science and technology, environmental studies, and media and communication studies, they also present methods for foregrounding the role of communication in scientific and environmental governance.

Images are ubiquitous in everyday life. They are a key part of the communication process, shaping peoples’ attitudes and policy preferences on climate change. Images which have come to dominate visual portrayals of climate change (and conversely, those that are marginalised or excluded) influence how we interact with climate change in our everyday lives. This paper presents the first in-depth, cross-cultural and longitudinal study of climate change visual discourse. It examines over a thousand images associated with articles about climate change in UK and US newspapers between 2001 and 2009, a pivotal decade for climate change engagement. Content, frame and iconographic analyses reveal a remarkably consistent visual discourse in the UK and US newspapers. The longitudinal analysis shows how the visual representation of climate changed mid-decade. Before 2005, a distancing frame was common. Imagery of polar landscapes acted as a visual synecdoche for distant climate risk. After 2005, there was a rapid increase in visual coverage, an increase in use of the contested visual frame, alongside an increase in climate cartoons, protest imagery and visual synecdoches. These synecdoches began to be subverted and parodied, particularly in the right-leaning press. These results illustrate the rise of climate change scepticism during the mid-2000s. This study has implications for public engagement with climate change. It shows that the contested and distancing visual frames are deeply and historically embedded in the meaning-making of climate change. Additionally, it showcases the importance of visual synecdoches, used by newspapers in particular circumstances to engage particular audiences. Knowing and understanding visual use is imperative to enable an evidence-based approach to climate engagement endeavours.

It is commonly argued that, despite the tremendous resonance Citizen Science (CS) has shown in recent years, there is still lack of understanding of important aspects defining citizens’ participation and engagement in CS initiatives. While CS initiatives could provide a vehicle to foster forms of participation contributing to the democratization of science, there is still limited attention paid to the “Citizen” component of the Citizen Science term. For the purpose of this work, we systematically reviewed the available literature for empirical studies in respect to citizens’ participation in environmental and nature-based CS initiatives established during the last two decades, using the PRISMA methodology. The participatory facet of the retrieved 119 CS initiatives was analysed on the basis of: (a) exclusion and inclusion demographic factors, (b) CS models and practices, (c) facilitators and constraints of citizen’s participation, and (d) environmental citizenship. Our findings show that the majority of the CS initiatives did not place restrictions on gender participation; however, we have identified that mostly highly educated adults participated in the reviewed initiatives. In addition, most of the CS initiatives reported in the literature were situated in the EU and USA, were mostly limited to the local scale, and primarily followed the contributory model. Academic institutions were found to coordinate the majority of the CS initiatives examined. By using digital technologies, academic scientists were able to control and increase data quality, as well as to engage a broader audience, even though they were mostly treating volunteers as “data collectors”, desiring their long-term engagement. Therefore, it will be of CS benefit to be better aligned with the mentality and needs of citizens. In this direction CS initiatives should trigger citizens’ learning gains and interpersonal/social benefits and personal, environmental, and social motivations, but also to shift their goals towards contributing to science and citizens’ connection with nature. On the other hand, there is a need to overcome any design and implementation barriers, and to enhance democratization through a more participative engagement of active and aware citizens, thus promoting environmental citizenship.

News organizations increasingly use the terms “climate emergency” and “climate crisis” to convey the urgency of climate change; yet, little is known about how this terminology affects news audiences. This study experimentally examined how using “climate emergency,” “climate crisis,” or “climate change” in Twitter-based news stories influences public engagement with climate change and news perceptions, as well as whether the effects depend on the focus of the news (i.e., on climate impacts, actions, or both impacts and actions) and on participants’ political ideology. Results showed no effect of terminology on climate change engagement; however, “climate emergency” reduced perceived news credibility and newsworthiness compared to “climate change.” Both climate engagement and news perceptions were more consistently affected by the focus of the stories: news about climate impacts increased fear, decreased efficacy beliefs and hope, and reduced news credibility compared to news about climate actions. No interactions with political ideology were found.

Climate change activism has been uncommon in the U.S., but a growing national movement is pressing for a political response. To assess the cognitive and affective precursors of climate activism, we hypothesize and test a two-stage information-processing model based on social cognitive theory. In stage 1, expectations about climate change outcomes and perceived collective efficacy to mitigate the threat are hypothesized to influence affective issue involvement and support for societal mitigation action. In stage 2, beliefs about the effectiveness of political activism, perceived barriers to activist behaviors and opinion leadership are hypothesized to influence intended and actual activism. To test these hypotheses, we fit a structural equation model using nationally representative data. The model explains 52 percent of the variance in a latent variable representing three forms of climate change activism: contacting elected representatives; supporting organizations working on the issue; and attending climate change rallies or meetings. The results suggest that efforts to increase citizen activism should promote specific beliefs about climate change, build perceptions that political activism can be effective, and encourage interpersonal communication on the issue.

Personal relevance is a key driver of individual climate action. It is also related to media use and interpersonal communication, which the current study examines from two perspectives. First, individuals may find climate change personally relevant because they experience it vicariously through the media and other information sources. Second, they may engage with climate change information because the issue is personally relevant. This study tested these models using structural equation modeling of online survey data from representative samples in Singapore (n = 1,997) and the United States (n = 2,009). Findings supported both models, albeit the first one more strongly. In the first model, the relationship between the use of traditional audiovisual media and personal relevance was serially mediated by perceived experience and perceived risk. The indirect effect was the same to two decimals in both countries (β =.12), suggesting that traditional audiovisual communication about climate change may be key to promoting public engagement with climate change. In the second model, personal relevance positively predicted the use of traditional audiovisual and textual media, social media, and interpersonal communication. In both countries, those paths had medium effect sizes (β >.29). These findings do not resolve which causal direction is correct, and it is possible that both occur simultaneously in sort of reinforcing spiral.

Citizen science and citizen energy communities are pluralistic terms that refer to a constellation of methods, projects, and outreach activities; however, citizen science and citizen energy communities are rarely, if ever, explicitly aligned. Our searches for “citizen science” and “energy” produced limited results and “citizen science” and “energy communities” produced zero. Therefore, to outline a future direction of citizen science, its potential alliances with energy communities, and their collaborative contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals, we performed a systematic literature review and analysis of “public participation” and “energy communities” using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRIMSA) guidelines. The results show four pathways through which current public participation in energy communities might be more explicitly aligned with citizen science projects: benefits and values, energy practices, intermediaries, and energy citizenship. Each of these pathways could engage citizen scientists in qualitative and quantitative research and increase scientific literacy about energy systems. Our call for citizen science to supplement current forms of participation builds from the “ecologies of participation” framework, itself an extension of co-productionist theories of science and technology studies. We conclude with a discussion of affordances and barriers to the alliances between citizen science and energy communities and their potential contributions to SDGs 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, 13: Climate Action, and 17: Partnerships for the Goals.

The engagement of volunteers in Citizen Science (CS) projects is a relevant issue that needs to be addressed to ensure long-term sustainability, scientific relevance, and public participation. Given this, the present paper analyses the social drivers of volunteers’ involvement in a long-term CS initiative to monitor protected species and habitats all over Italian national territory. This initiative was initially born as the LIFE11 NAT/IT/000252 MIPP (Monitoring of Insects with Public Participation), then changed name to “InNat” benefitting from Italian national fundings, and it finally ended in 2024. Overall, it counts more than 1600 participants to whom a dedicated survey was submitted in 2022 to compare and analyse different factors potentially driving participation (potential enablers) and fostering engagement within the project. Based on the survey results (22.3% response rate of 1632 invitations sent), different drivers for participation are modelled (socio-demographic features, interest in scientific topics, environmental attitudes) considering the following main factors: (i) the level of commitment to the initiative, (ii) the seniority of the citizen scientist involved, (iii) the attitudes towards nature conservation and species monitoring, (iv) the value assigned to CS activities. In this context, socio-demographic variables have been compared to attitudes and practices connected to open-air monitoring activities (e.g., recording protected species and habitats by taking pictures in nature). The proposed analyses tackle a variety of cultural and social components as well as their relationship, highlighting some of the features (e.g., active interest in CS activities reverberating in both commitments to engage other volunteers and active search for CS initiatives) that characterize constant participation. We classified volunteers into two categories (i.e., Consistent Volunteers and Non-Consistent Volunteers), comparing these two categories along potential enablers of engagement. Results show homogeneity among volunteers for several parameters (e.g., similar education level, age, occupational status) but also differences in personal motivation and active interest in citizen science initiatives.

Environmental education strategies have customarily placed substantial focus on enhancing ecological knowledge and literacy with the hope that, upon discovering relevant facts and concepts, participants will be better equipped to process and dissect environmental issues and, therefore, make more informed decisions. The assumption is that informed citizens will become active citizens--enthusiastically lobbying for, and participating in, conservation-oriented action. We surveyed and interviewed and used performance data from 432 participants in the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), a scientifically rigorous citizen science program, to explore measurable change in and links between understanding and action. We found that participation in rigorous citizen science was associated with significant increases in participant knowledge and skills; a greater connection to place and, secondarily, to community; and an increasing awareness of the relative impact of anthropogenic activities on local ecosystems specifically through increasing scientific understanding of the ecosystem and factors affecting it. Our results suggest that a place-based, data-rich experience linked explicitly to local, regional, and global issues can lead to measurable change in individual and collective action, expressed in our case study principally through participation in citizen science and community action and communication of program results to personal acquaintances and elected officials. We propose the following tenets of conservation literacy based on emergent themes and the connections between them explicit in our data: place-based learning creates personal meaning making; individual experience nested within collective (i.e., program-wide) experience facilitates an understanding of the ecosystem process and function at local and regional scales; and science-based meaning making creates informed concern (i.e., the ability to discern both natural and anthropogenic forcing), which allows individuals to develop a personalized prioritization schema and engage in conservation action. Las estrategias de educación ambiental le han otorgado habitualmente un enfoque sustancial al mejoramiento de la alfabetización y el conocimiento ecológico con la esperanza de que, una vez que se descubran hechos y conceptos relevantes, los participantes serán mejores en el análisis de información sobre los sucesos ambientales y en la toma de decisiones razonables sobre el ambiente. La suposición consiste en que los ciudadanos se volverán ciudadanos activos - que persuaden con entusiasmo para, y participan en, acciones orientadas a la conservación. Encuestamos, entrevistamos y usamos la información de desempeño de 432 participantes del Equipo de Observación Costera y Censado de Aves Marinas (COASST, en inglés), un programa científicamente riguroso de ciencia ciudadana, para explorar el cambio medible en y los enlaces entre la acción y el entendimiento. Encontramos que la participación en la ciencia ciudadana rigurosa se asocia con los incrementos significativos en el conocimiento y las habilidades de los participantes; una conexión mayor con el lugar y de manera secundaria con la comunidad; y una conciencia creciente por el impacto relativo de las actividades antropogénicas sobre los ecosistemas locales, específicamente por medio del incremento del entendimiento científico del ecosistema y los factores que le afectan. Nuestros resultados sugieren que una experiencia rica en datos y basada en la localidad, enlazada explícitamente con temas locales, regionales y globales, puede llevar a un cambio medible en las acciones individuales y colectivas, expresado en nuestro estudio de caso principalmente a través de la participación en la ciencia ciudadana y las acciones comunitarias y en la comunicación de los resultados de los programas a conocidos y funcionarios electos. Proponemos los siguientes principios de alfabetización de la conservación con base en temas emergentes y las conexiones entre ellos, explícitas en nuestros datos: el aprendizaje basado en la localidad crea la construcción de significados personales; la experiencia individual anidada dentro de la experiencia colectiva (es decir, en la totalidad del programa) facilita el entendimiento de los procesos ambientales y funciona a la escala regional y local; y la creación de significados basados en la ciencia crea una conciencia informada (es decir, la habilidad de discernir tanto la fuerza natural como la antropogénica), la cual permite que los individuos desarrollen un esquema personalizado de priorización y se comprometan con las acciones de conservación.