Climate Denialism as a Discursive Dynamic: Truth (and Politics) Beyond

Stephen Hutchings, ‘Climate Denialism as a Discursive Dynamic: Truth (and Politics) Beyond Facts’, International Journal of Communication, 20 (2026), 2583-2605.

This article examines how climate denialism is constructed and accommodated within counter-disinformation frameworks. Applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to the online output of climate change contesters, it reveals how competing actors mirror and reappropriate one another’s discursive strategies across shifting political, social, and media contexts, challenging reductive distinctions between scientific truth and denialist falsehood. Arguing that the depoliticization of climate change obscures the contested relationship between facts, knowledge, and truth, the study advocates an agonistic understanding of democracy that recognizes political conflict and pluralism as essential to addressing climate contestation and advancing effective climate action.

Link to the online open-access article: https://doi.org/10.65476/gq3wv186