Information and opinion in the representation of scientific consensus and skepticism on climate change, in Spanish language online publications

Abstract

This paper explores the representation of scientific consensus and skepticism on Climate Change (CC), in online Spanish language publications, by a content analysis of the results of a search of “quinto informe IPCC” (5th IPCC report) on Google. Results indicate that legacy media represent exclusively the scientific consensus, whereas digital natives represent the skeptic voices. Legacy media tend to differentiate information from opinion, whereas digital natives tend not to differentiate one from the other. The “information-opinion” mix is often used by digital natives as an strategy to situate the IPCC at the same epistemological level of other scientific and non-scientific sources.