Climate Disinformation on YouTube Brazil: between scientific rationality and religious appeal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12795/Ambitos.2025.i68.02Keywords:
climate change, scientific disinformation, climate disinformation, videos, YouTubeAbstract
In recent years, YouTube has become a relevant platform for scientific communication research. Although several studies have been carried out regarding scientific disinformation on that platform, especially in the context of vaccines, climate disinformation has still been little explored. In this paper, we analyze the dynamics of production and circulation of climate disinformation in YouTube videos in Brazil published during the year 2023. To do this, we considered both the particularities of the platform and the specificities of the Brazilian context. The methodological procedures involved data collection on YouTube Brazil using the descriptors “climate change” and “global warming”, followed by an analysis to identify disinformation content, resulting in a corpus of 34 videos. We used content and thematic analysis, based on a qualitative-quantitative approach, exploring themes, types of disinformation, social actors, presence/absence of scientific arguments, purpose, as well as intersections between these categories. We conclude that, on YouTube Brazil, climate denial predominated that year, based on a discourse with informative characteristics. Nevertheless, religiosity/spirituality also emerged as a relevant theme, based on fanaticism and the appeal to an emotional and catastrophic discourse by religious/spiritual leaders.
Downloads
References
Abellán-López, M. A. (2021). El cambio climático: negacionismo, escepticismo y desinformación. Tabula Rasa, (37), 283-301. https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n37.13
Allgaier, J. (2019). Science and environmental communication on YouTube: Strategically distorted communications in online videos on climate change and climate engineering. Frontiers in Communication, (4), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00036
Allington, D., Duffy, B., Wessely, S., Dhavan, N., & Rubin, J. (2021). Health-protective behaviour, social media usage and conspiracy belief during the COVID-19 public health emergency - CORRIGENDUM. Psychol Med. 51(10),1770. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291721000593
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2021). One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative Research in Psychology, 18(3), 328-352. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238
Center for Countering Digital Hate. (2024). The new climate denial: How social media platforms and content producers profit by spreading news forms of climate denial. https://bit.ly/4egfbzW
Cesarino, L. (2022). O mundo do avesso: Verdade e política na era digital. Ubu Editora.
Charaudeau, P. (2010). Discurso das mídias (A. M. S. Corrêa, Trad.). Contexto. (Trabalho original publicado em 2005)
Cook, J. (31 de março de 2020). A history of FLICC: The 5 techniques of science denial. Skeptical Science.
Cruz, L., Fagundes, V., Massarani, L., & Oliveira, T. (2025). Dinâmicas da Desinformação Climática em Publicações de Facebook e Instagram no Brasil. Comunicação E Sociedade, (47), e025002-e025002. https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.47(2025).6041
de Nadal, L. (2024). From denial to the culture wars: A study of climate misinformation on YouTube. Environmental Communication, 18(8), 1186-1203. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2024.2363861
Fernandes-de-Oliveira, G., Massarani, L., Alves-dos-Santos-Junior, M., Scalfi, G., & Oliveira, T. (2024). The COVID-19 vaccine on the short-video platform Kwai: A study of the emotions expressed in Brazilian content. Cultures of Science, 7(3), 166-183. https://doi.org/10.1177/20966083241280684
Franta, B. (2021). Early oil industry disinformation on global warming. Environmental Politics, 30(4), 663-668. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2020.1863703
Global Religion. (2023). Religious beliefs across the world. Ipsos. https://bit.ly/4ejieaw
Hassan, I., Musa, R. M., Latiff Azmi, M. N., Razali Abdullah, M., & Yusoff, S. Z. (2023). Analysis of climate change disinformation across types, agents and media platforms. Information Development, 40(3), 504-516. https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669221148693
Humprecht, E., & Kessler, S. H. (2024). Unveiling misinformation on YouTube: examining the content of COVID-19 vaccination misinformation videos in Switzerland. Frontiers in Communication, (9), 1250024. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1250024
Kim, S. J., & Chen, K. (2022). The use of emotions in conspiracy and debunking videos to engage publics on YouTube. New Media & Society, 26(7), 3854-3875. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221105877
Latour, B. (2020). Is this a dress rehearsal? Critical Inquiry, 47(S2), S25–S27. https://doi.org/10.1086/711428
Lazer, D. M., Baum, M. A., Benkler, Y., Berinsky, A. J., Greenhill, K. M., Menczer, F., & Zittrain, J. L. (2018). The science of fake news. Science, 359(6380), 1094-1096. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2998
Lemos, A. L. M., Bitencourt, E. C., & dos Santos, J. G. B. (2020). Fake news as fake politics: the digital materialities of YouTube misinformation videos about Brazilian oil spill catastrophe. Media, Culture & Society, 43(5), 886-905. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720977301
Lewandowsky, S. (2021). Climate change disinformation and how to combat it. Annual Review of Public Health, 42(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-090419-102409
Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Ecker, U., Albarracín, D., Kendeou, P., Newman, E., Pennycook, G., Porter, E., Rand, D., Rapp, D., Reifler, J., Roozenbeek, J., Schmid, P., Seifert, C., Sinatra, G., Swire-Thompson, B., van der Linden, S., Wood, T. J., & Zaragoza, M. S. (2020). The Debunking Handbook 2020. Center for Climate Change Communication. https://doi.org/10.17910/b7.1182
Lima, R., Belem, A. L., Lycarião, D., Oliveira, T., Evangelista, S., Massarani, L., & Alves, M. (2024). (Un)certainty in science and climate change: a longitudinal analysis (2014-2022) of narratives about climate science on social media in Brazil (Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) JCOM 23(09), A07. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.23090207
Li, H.O., Pastukhova, E., Brandts-Longtin, O., Tan, M.G., & Kirchhof, M.G (2022). YouTube as a source of misinformation on COVID-19 vaccination: a systematic analysis. BMJ Glob Health. Mar;7(3):e008334. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-008334
Loiola, D. F. E. (2022). O negacionismo do aquecimento global no Youtube: Uma análise exploratória. Revista Ciências Humanas, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.32813/2179-1120.2022.v15.n3.a928
Magalhães, E., Alves dos Santos Junior, M., Oliveira Fagundes, V., Moreira de Oliveira, T., & Massarani, L. (2023). Esfera pública digital e atores sociais que pautaram as discussões sobre vacinas no Instagram e Facebook no Brasil durante a pandemia de COVID-19 (2020-2021). Observatório (OBS*), 17(3).
Mancoso, K., Paes, A., de Oliveira, T., & Massarani, L. (2023). Pesquisa em desinformação e divulgação científica: uma revisão da literatura latino-americana. Journal of Science Communication-América Latina, 6(01), A01. https://doi.org/10.22323/3.06010201
Neves, L. F. F., Oliveira, T., da Silva Lopes, A., Pereira Brotas, A. M., & Massarani, L. (2025). Vaccines on YouTube in Brazil: an exploratory study using Natural Language Processing. Brazilian Journalism Research, 21(1), e1711. https://doi.org/10.25200/BJR.v21n1.2025.1711
Newman, N. (2023). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023. Reuters Institute.
Nguyen, A., & Catalan, D. (2020). Digital mis/disinformation and public engagment with health and science controversies: Fresh perspectives from Covid-19. Media and Communication, 8(2), 323-328. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i2.3352
Oliveira, T. M. de. (2020). Como enfrentar a desinformação científica? Desafios sociais, políticos e jurídicos intensificados no contexto da pandemia. Liinc em Revista, 16(2), e5374. https://doi.org/10.18617/liinc.v16i2.5374
Pinto, C. B., Silva, D., Satos, M. L., M., Medeiros, P. M. D., Salles, D. G., & Santini, R. M. (2024). Negacionismo climático no YouTube: Como argumentos de falsos especialistas repercutem nos comentários da audiência. In Anais do 33° Encontro Anual da COMPÓS.
Rêgo, A. R., & Zunino, E. (2024). Disinformation: a collective, human and technological phenomenon and the different ways to combat it. The International Review of Information Ethics, 33(1). https://doi.org/10.29173/irie519
Romanello, M., Di Napoli, C., Green, C., Kennard, H., Lampard, P., Scamman, D., ... & Costello, A. (2023). The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms. The Lancet, 402(10419), 2346-2394. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01859-7
Sampaio, R., & Lycarião, D. (2021). Análise de conteúdo categorial: Manual de aplicação. Enap.
Santini, R. M., & Barros, C. E. (2022). Negacionismo climático e desinformação online: uma revisão de escopo. Liinc em Revista, 18(1), e5948-e5948. https://doi.org/10.18617/liinc.v18i1.5948
Scheufele, D. A., & Krause, N. M. (2019). Science audiences, misinformation, and fake news. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(16), 7662-7669. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805871115
Thapa Magar, N., Thapa, B. J., & Li, Y. (2024). Climate Change Misinformation in the United States: An Actor–Network Analysis. Journalism and Media, 5(2), 595-613. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia5020040
Torrico, D. V. (2023). Analysis of climate denialism on YouTube: Refuting instead of debating. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 15(2), 217-235. https://doi.org/10.1386/cjcs_00089_1
Torrico, D. V., & Puente, V. G. (2023). Negacionismo y desinformación climática en YouTube: Análisis de contenido del discurso negacionista entre los vídeos más vistos en castellano. Miguel Hernández Communication Journal, (14), 89-108. https://doi.org/10.21134/mhjournal.v14i.1812
Treen, K. M. D. I., Williams, H. T., & O’Neill, S. J. (2020). Online misinformation about climate change. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 11(5), e665. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.665
Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H. (2017). Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Council of Europe. https://bit.ly/443Lihm
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ricardo Bolzán , LUANA CRUZ, Luisa Massarani , Ana Cláudia Bessa de Resende, Vanessa Fagundes , Thaiane Oliveira
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Ámbitos. Revista Internacional de Comunicación is an open access journal, which means that all content is freely available at no charge to the user or their institution. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without seeking prior permission from the publisher or author. This definition of open access is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI).
Unless otherwise noted, all content in the electronic edition is distributed under a "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License". You can consult the informative version and legal text of the licence here. This should be expressly stated in this way where necessary.
In case of acceptance of the manuscript, the authors cede the rights of the work for its publication to Ámbitos. Revista Internacional de Comunicación under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license contract (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). The authors retain copyright and third parties are authorised to copy, distribute and make use of the work, provided they comply with the terms and conditions set out in the licence
- Cite the authorship and the original source of publication (journal, publisher and URL of the work).
- Do not use them for commercial purposes.
- If you remix, transform or create from the material, you must release your contributions under the same license as the original.
More information can be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.es
