The Contribution of Extreme Event Communication to Climate Change Mitigation: Outrage and Blame Discourse in Twitter Conversation on Severe Fires

Risk communication from the perspective of Extreme Event Attribution (EEA), which assesses the extent to which climate change influences various extreme weather events, has significant potential for climate change communication due to its ability to make the phenomenon more relatable to citizens. This study examines the digital conversation generated following the wave of wildfires in Spain in 2022, which was declared the worst year of the 21st century in terms of hectares burned. By using the Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology, 145,081 tweets were analyzed to construct a mention network, capturing the digital clusters formed around this discussion and highlighting the predominant tones in the debate. The findings reveal that the conversation predominantly adopted a tone of outrage and assigned responsibility. This research study offers a renewed perspective on risk communication, highlighting significant challenges faced by environmental activism on social media and underscoring the need to improve communication strategies to increase awareness and mobilization around climate change.