About the Project

Climate change is a pressing problem facing humanity and a major polarizing topic in public discourse. Discussions on climate change pervade political agendas worldwide. IPCC experts agree that currently implemented measures against climate change are inadequate in their efforts. Information akin to this often rapidly breaks into social media spheres (e.g., Instagram and TikTok) in increasingly visual and often humor-driven attention cycles. The KLIMA-MEMES project will analyze how such communication in the form of memes or other visual media with an intent to be humorous can affect political decision-making.


Given this background, the project will investigate this research gap by

  • methodically utilizing machine vision and natural language processing in a political and strategic communication context
  • conceptually and empirically tracing public negotiation processes about memes and their influence on political decision makers
  • theoretically combining modern approaches of diffusion theory with older approaches of agenda setting as well as more recent approaches to the impact of visual communication in a sustainable way.
(1) establish an interdisciplinary survey and measurement tool for textual and visual content in social media
(2) empirically analyze humorous-intended public communication and its diffusion in the context of UN climate conferences
(3) empirically test the influence of such content and its diffusion on the political decision-making of members of the German Bundestag

The KLIMA-MEMES project is funded by the Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation.