Climates of Opinion: Truth Frames of Climate Change on Facebook in Italy

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE
Author/s Giovanni Boccia Artieri, Stefano Brilli, Francesco Maria Parente, Luca Serafini
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2026/71
Language Italian Pages 23 P. 67-89 File size 374 KB
DOI 10.3280/SC2026-071004
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The study analyses how epistemic authority on climate change is constructed and contested within the Italian Facebook publics. Starting from 108 false news items about climate change debunked by Italian fact-checkers between 2021 and 2022, we collected 2,623 posts that express an explicit stance on the issue. A first quantitative analysis maps the distribution of skeptical and pro-consensus content; a second qualitative analysis reconstructs the framing of expertise and the procedures through which facts are constructed. The results show a limited circulation of fact-checking content, a cross-cutting use of personal experience as evidence, but also a key divergence between the two publics: while pro-consensus actors tend to treat Facebook as a space for circulating scientific knowledge, skeptical actors often frame the platform itself as a legitimate site for producing alternative evidence and truth claims.

Keywords: climate change, Italian Facebook, platformization of knowledge, framing, epistemic authority, climate skepticism.

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Giovanni Boccia Artieri, Stefano Brilli, Francesco Maria Parente, Luca Serafini, Climi di opinione. Cornici di verità del cambiamento climatico su Facebook in Italia in "SOCIOLOGIA DELLA COMUNICAZIONE " 71/2026, pp 67-89, DOI: 10.3280/SC2026-071004