Waqas Ejaz

How News Media, Climate Anxiety, and Trust Shape Pro-Climate Behaviour Across Eight Countries - Waqas Ejaz, Mary Sanford, Richard Fletcher, 2025 Despite the importance of climate news in shaping public engagement, little is known about how different types of media – mainstream and non-mainstream – relate...

Strikingly, these mechanisms showed remarkable consistency across 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇮🇳🇵🇰🇧🇷🇯🇵🇫🇷🇩🇪.

The takeaway? Emotional responses & media trust are critical often more so than exposure alone.

Full paper: doi.org/10.1177/1940...

Couldn't have done without amazing @marysanford.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social

We found that the key isn't avoiding anxiety, but understanding the pathways to action:

➡️ Mainstream news consistently boosts intent to act.
➡️ Non-mainstream media also (but conditionally) works
➡️ Trust in media is a powerful amplifier, supercharging the link between news and the intention to act.

New Paper Alert 🧵📣

There is a growing concern that the negative valence in climate stories paralyses consumers & perhaps even prevents them from taking pro-environmental actions.

However, we found that climate anxiety is a robust and universal driver of pro-climate behavioral intentions.👇

A thread on how people's use of generative AI has changed in the last year - based on survey data from 6 countries (🇬🇧🇺🇸🇫🇷🇩🇰🇯🇵🇦🇷 ).

First, gen AI use has grown rapidly.

Most people have tried out gen AI at least once (61%), and 34% now use it on a weekly basis - roughly doubling from 18% a year ago.

New paper on news avoidance around climate change, based on data from 8 countries.

We aim to add a bit of nuance to what we already know about news avoidance in general, particularly on the association between avoidance and specific emotional responses to climate news.

doi.org/10.1177/1464...

Couldn’t have done it without insightful guidance of @richardfletcher.bsky.social and @hongtienvu.bsky.social - like most works it also suffered many rejections until it found the best possible home :)

🚨✨ Publication alert: How do people in 6 countries (🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🇦🇷 🇩🇰 🇯🇵 ) use AI 🤖 and think about it in the context of information, news, and institutions?

Our new @reutersinstitute.bsky.social survey research (n ≈ 12,000) with @richardfletcher.bsky.social & @rasmuskleis.bsky.social explores this.

How do people use generative AI in their daily lives? And how do they use it for news?
These are two of the questions we explore in a new report, based on fresh survey data from 🇦🇷🇩🇰🇫🇷🇯🇵🇬🇧🇺🇸

🔗 Full report
buff.ly/mv3Jc5r
🧵 Key findings in thread

We’re told doom & gloom 📰 makes people avoid climate news. Turns out… not really.

😟 Worry doesn’t push people away.
😡 Fear, anger, stress? Mostly irrelevant — except in India & Japan.

A little climate anxiety might actually keep people engaged.

🔗https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849251381613

What if the bigger problem isn’t people who are climate sceptics but systems that don’t care what the majority believe or want?

Wrote a piece on it arguing the real blockages lie in politics, power, and policy not in public scepticism.

doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Also this chart from our report led by @waqasejaz.bsky.social

Read the report in full here reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-chan...

Talking Shop: Amplify Your Impact: Social Media Strategies for Climate Journalists — Covering Climate Now For the first time, social media has overtaken television as Americans’ top news source. That’s according to Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in its 2025 Digital News Report, rel...

Panelists:
- @waqasejaz.bsky.social, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Reuters Institute's Oxford Climate Journalism Network
- ‪@gingerzee.bsky.social‬, Chief Meteorologist & Chief Climate Correspondent, ABC News

RSVP here: coveringclimatenow.org/event/talkin...

Big day for us at Reuters whenever we publish our annual report & every year it comes at a time when it is so consequential for making sense of our information ecosystem. Always a pleasure seeing it develop throughout the year & some really smart ppl doing absolutely fantastic job on it. Thank you:)

Two #ICA25 presentations from @reutersinstitute.bsky.social researchers today.

1. For the early risers, me @felixsimon.bsky.social @waqasejaz.bsky.social & @rasmuskleis.bsky.social on what variables are associated with positive/negative attitudes towards the use of generative AI in news in 🇬🇧🇺🇸🇩🇰🇦🇷🇯🇵🇫🇷

Three @reutersinstitute.bsky.social presentations at #ICA25 today.

1. @waqasejaz.bsky.social Mary Sandford and me on the link between news use, climate anxiety and pro-environment behaviour across 8 countries.

Here are the panels, presentations and posters at ICA 2025 featuring researchers from the Reuters Institute The annual gathering will see our researchers share findings around generative AI, climate news and trust.

If you're at #ICA25 in Denver some of our researchers inc. @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social @waqasejaz.bsky.social @richardfletcher.bsky.social and Tali Aharoni will be sharing their latest findings on subjects including attitudes to AI, news and climate, and trust in news.
buff.ly/UHFkdTz

Curtis Yarvin is inspiring a new generation of MAGA. He believes the US should be ruled by a monarch | CNN Politics CNN’s Hadas Gold interviews anti-democracy author Curtis Yarvin about his argument for an all-powerful executive in the White House, and his chillingly accurate prediction of how President Donald Trum...

I am all for freedom of expression etc etc but when you give platform & 3:41 mins to someone peddling anti-democratic, autocratic BS with no opposing view while headlining him "inspiring" - Can’t help but wonder if “bothsidesism” is just for when it’s convenient? 🤔

edition.cnn.com/2025/05/31/p...

BREAKING:
"Given these circumstances, we have decided not to hold another ICA conference in the United States during this administration and have delayed our contract with Chicago until May 2029."
#ICA25

We are thrilled to announce that @mitalilive.bsky.social has been appointed Director of the Reuters Institute. Mukherjee, who has been Acting Director since last October, was selected in an open process that concluded in late March

Read our full announcement
buff.ly/1beGPME
Details in thread

Climate change news use also declined in the US in 2024, as we documented in our latest @reutersinstitute.bsky.social ‘Climate Change and News Audiences’ report.

More here: reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/climate-chan...

Jim Egan will be the lead author of the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report from 2026 A senior leader and adviser in the global journalism sector, he’ll work on the current edition with Nic Newman before taking the lead role in autumn 2025.

We are thrilled to announce that Jim Egan has been selected as the next lead author of the Digital News Report.

He will support the current author, Nic Newman, through this year's process before taking the lead role in autumn 2025

Details in thread
Full announcement here
buff.ly/L2oVph9

The data from this report by @waqasejaz.bsky.social @rasmuskleis.bsky.social @shannimcg.bsky.social on the role of platforms in 8 countries is now available on our website.

Click 'Download the data' and see what you can find!

See the thread below for a taste of the what's inside.

The data we collected to understand people's views on individual digital platform across 🇦🇷🇧🇷🇩🇪🇯🇵🇪🇸🇰🇷🇬🇧🇺🇸 is now publicly available for any1 interested to explore it further by clicking "Download the data".

I promise there is still a lot to unpack. Following thread gives you a glimpse of what we covered.

Covering the climate community, with Waqas Ejaz of the Reuters Institute Policymakers, scientists and even disruptive protest groups all largely want the same thing: to save the planet. They just go about it in different ways - here is how the media fits in

Had great time sharing insights from our OCJN work about climate activism, news media, and climate politics with Jacob for his new podcast @journalismnews.bsky.social

www.journalism.co.uk/podcast/repo...

ICE Arrests Pro-Palestinian Activist at Columbia Mahmoud Khalil, who recently completed a graduate program at Columbia, has legal permanent residency, his lawyer said.

Where I come from, these things are quite normal, in fact, I anticipate someone's illegal 'disappearence' when he/she speaks out, because dictators have normalised this for us but seeing it happening in US surprises me. Don't let him normalise this for you:
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/n...

New publication out today!

You have never used such "French" in our manuscripts - so I wouldn't have guessed its you :P

Watching chaos through a screen: How social media is changing the way we follow extreme weather events Journalists from Brazil, Nigeria and the UK reflect on the impact of online platforms on the way we consume news about climate disasters.

People are increasingly engaging with news on social media, including extreme weather events.
How can they sort valuable from misleading narratives?
@marinaadami.bsky.social spoke to @meghier.bsky.social @bbcmarcosilva.bsky.social and Lanre Olagunju

Journalism and audiences: Five must-read recent news reports for your newsroom The world is a pretty depressing place right now. Find out what news audiences truly value (and need) when it comes to court, climate and music reporting

Our recent report on climate change was featured among these five, with a great summary of our findings. Check it out here:

www.journalism.co.uk/news/journal...

Thank you @journalismnews.bsky.social