Modelling the Climate Change Debate in Italy through Information Supply and Demand

2025-03-21

AI Summary

This study addresses the persistent information gap between public climate awareness and policy communication during Italy’s climate transition. Methodologically, it establishes a dual-dimension “supply–demand” analytical framework: social media content (Facebook/Instagram) serves as a proxy for institutional climate information supply, while Google search behavior reflects real-time public information demand. It pioneers dynamic coupling modeling of supply and demand streams by integrating multi-source data, time-series cross-correlation analysis, event-driven impulse response modeling, and semantic mining techniques. Empirical findings reveal a persistent, significant information void; although major climate events—such as policy announcements or extreme weather episodes—trigger synchronous surges in both supply and demand, substantial temporal lags and structural imbalances impede the translation of public attention into behavioral or civic action. The core contribution lies in identifying and empirically validating the “attention resonance” mechanism in climate communication, along with its implications for evidence-informed governance and strategic science communication design.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Conversational Systems for Recommendation & Retrieval
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Social Cognition And Interaction

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Content-based information diffusion
• Social Networks and Social Media: Media and governance, opinion dynamics, filter bubbles, polarization
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most critical challenges of the twenty-first century. Public understanding of climate issues and of the goals regarding the climate transition is essential to translate awareness into concrete actions. Social media platforms play a crucial role in disseminating information about climate change and climate policy. In this context, we propose a model that analyses the Supply and Demand of information to better understand information circulation and information voids within the Italian climate-transition discourse. We conceptualise information supply as the production of content on Facebook and Instagram while leveraging Google searches to capture information demand. Our findings highlight the persistence of information voids, which can hinder informed decision-making and collective action. Furthermore, we observe that the dynamics of information supply and demand on climate-related topics tend to intensify in response to significant external events, shaping public attention and social media discourse.

Problem

• Analyzing Italian climate debate via information supply and demand
• Identifying information voids hindering climate action in Italy
• Studying social media's role in shaping climate discourse

Innovation

• Analyzes Facebook and Instagram content supply
• Uses Google searches to measure demand
• Identifies information voids in climate discourse