The Politics of Trust: Emotions and Visual Narratives in Online Climate Change Debates at COP26

Abstract Studies have shown how online political communication mobilizes support by appealing to the audience’s emotions. The role of the visual affordances of digital technologies in this process, however, remains insufficiently studied. This paper analyzes visual narratives surrounding international political debates on climate change at the United Nations Climate Change Conference of 2021. Our findings highlight that images are key in conveying emotion in tweets, and show that actors use a variety of visual tools both to construct and to undermine trust. We find that visuals communicate important affective nuances in emotion norms and that the latter, in turn, play a key role in political messaging that fosters or undermines trust in Conference of the Parties (COP) proceedings by validating certain emotions as appropriate to engage with the climate issue. The official COP narrative builds trust through images of professional neutrality, where rational detachment or optimism are the emotional norms of engagement. Climate deniers and climate activists reproduce this emotional neutrality through common-sense rationality and scientific objectivity, respectively, but also construct alternative emotion norms, which work to undermine trust in COP proceedings, albeit in different ways. Our contribution infuses a sociological perspective of emotions, trust, distrust, and mistrust, and highlights the role of visuality in international political debates about climate negotiations.