The Mediations of climate change: museums as citizens’ media

Abstract

Social research underlines how the mass media frames and presents environmental change and risk in ways that become contested cultural constructs embedded in deep ideological structures. While significant attention has concentrated on the mass media, less consideration has been given to examining the role of museums and science centres in communicating the science of climate change. The article looks at museums as cultural brokers in collaborative efforts around public understandings of climate change. Engaging with recent conceptualizations around citizens and public media practices, it proposes participatory design mechanisms through which the museum sector can act as change-agents in fostering a new form of public pedagogy that incorporates differing civic epistemologies around climate change education and action.