Delegitimizing climate policy on social media platforms: Dominant narratives
Delegitimizing climate policy on social media platforms: Dominant narratives

Summary/Abstract: The article examines climate policy-related negative narratives circulating between 20 February 2024 and 18 May 2025 in the Polish-language social media environment. It aims to identify the dominant narrative categories used to delegitimize climate policy and to assess their potential societal consequences. The study applies quantitative and qualitative content analysis to a corpus of social media posts. It codes recurring negative and, in some cases, disinformation-related claims about climate policy in narrative frames, with attention to how they connect climate policy to social problems. The findings indicate that the most visible narratives frame climate policy primarily through classic welfare-state domains, presenting it as a threat to household, economic security, employment, and living conditions. Some narratives also express broader opposition to regulation and public intervention. The article concludes that the visibility of such narratives may weaken the legitimacy of climate action and intensify contestation over compensatory measures and social protection instruments linked to climate transition. This highlights the need for climate policy to be accompanied by clearly communicated compensatory measures and social protection instruments that address distributive concerns and strengthen state legitimacy.

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