Experiencing Climate Change in the Digital Space: A South Korean Case

This study explores interactions surrounding the topic of climate change in the digital space. In order to understand the ways in which climate knowledge is presented, exchanged, and transformed, as well as how the affect attached to climate change is expressed or muted, I collect data from selected YouTube videos/shorts discussing various aspects of climate change and conduct a textual analysis of the contents and the replies voluntarily posted by the viewers. Climate knowledge and affect range over a wide spectrum, reflecting a myriad of cognitive and behavioral responses socioculturally prescribed, which is also constantly challenged and modified by individual and collective agents. From a fragmented, distant spectacle to an imminent, heartbreaking reality, the experiences of climate change in the digital space pose questions about how climate action can be imagined and practiced.

This study focuses on the South Korean context and reassembles the online discussions according to frequently visited themes and different levels/perspectives through which they are often framed. Real-life experiences of climate change such as heatwaves, floods, and wildfires within South Korea translated into the digital space will eventually point to the complex ways in which inequality is embedded in the environmental crisis and will also involve the intersecting traffic of emotions, dominating/normalizing certain aspects of the issue. The very nature of the YouTube platform would help observe a flexible sense of community beyond conventional social boundaries (such as scientific knowledge/common knowledge, expert/amateur, activist/laypeople, insider/outsider) through the specific patterns of communicating and existing online.