How Citizens Engage with Climate Authorities on Social Media

This page brings together all the materials related to the study "How citizens engage with the social media presence of climate authorities: the case of five Brazilian cities", by Lesandro Ponciano. It includes datasets, dissemination materials, a podcast video, and more—designed for students, researchers, and anyone interested in digital engagement and climate resilience.

Main Research Article

The research "How citizens engage with the social media presence of climate authorities: the case of five Brazilian cities" is published in npj Climate Action (Nature Portfolio). It explores citizen interactions with climate authorities on social media in five Brazilian cities, especially during extreme weather events. Using social media analysis, meteorological data, and qualitative methods, it examines how digital platforms shape climate communication. The findings highlight engagement patterns that promote awareness and preparedness, showing how online exchanges between citizens and officials can strengthen community resilience in the face of climate challenges. Some of the main results are discussed below:

• Authorities rely on passive posting. Local climate authorities mainly use social media for one-way communication, posting meteorological, hydrological, and geological alerts, forecasts, and weather updates without actively engaging citizens.
• Citizen engagement is short-term and reactive. Most replies from citizens are immediate and transient, focusing on specific events rather than sustained interaction over time. Long-term engagement is rare.
• Replies focus on corrections and additions, not climate change links. Citizens often correct inaccuracies, add local observations, or provide updates, but they rarely connect weather events to broader climate change phenomena.
• Limited two-way communication. Despite social media’s interactive nature, authorities seldom reply to citizens. Mentions are mostly directed at other government agencies rather than individuals, reinforcing a single-loop communication style.
• Engagement patterns mirror broader online participation inequality. A small number of citizens contribute many replies, while most participate minimally or not at all. This reflects the “long-tail” distribution typical of online communities.

Reflections are presented in the study as implications derived from the results:

• Reflections on the suitability of social media for sharing weather information in specific urban areas are highly relevant. Because such a geographic delimitation does not occur on social media platforms, citizens experience the problem of receiving a considerable amount of information from geographic regions that they are not interested in.
• Reflection on how authorities can use social media to keep citizens updated about unfolding weather conditions and risks—without overwhelming them with excessive information, omitting what is truly relevant, or treating outdated posts as current.
• Reflection that inaccuracies and complementary information reported by citizens in response to authority publications may signal the early stages of mistrust, which could compromise awareness of climate events. At the same time, such feedback represents an opportunity to improve authorities’ estimates of weather situations based on citizens’ input.
• Reflection on the growing debate regarding the evolution of social media platforms and how this impacts their usefulness for citizens and climate authorities, particularly as new platforms such as Mastodon, Bluesky, and Meta’s Threads gain prominence.

Research Datasets

The following datasets were created as part of this research and are publicly available for further analysis:

• Social Media Interaction Data. This dataset contains messages published and replies received by government weather and climate authorities on the X (former Twitter) social media platforms. The data comprises government weather and climate authorities for the Brazilian cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, and Belém. Government weather and climate authorities are city hall departments or sectors responsible for informing and keeping the population updated about weather events. Publications made by the authority and replies published by citizens to these publications are observed. This data supports the study on the interaction dynamics between the climate authority and citizens over time. Access social media dataset on Zenodo.
• Meteorological Warnings Data. The Brazilian National Institute of Meteorology (INMET, from the Portuguese "Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia") is the Brazilian government agency responsible for monitoring, analysing and forecasting weather and climate. It provides meteorological warnings to be used by the local-level municipal authorities. INMET periodically publishes data on its website and provides them via XML RSS Feed. This dataset was collected from the RSS feeds mentioning the Brazilian cities of Belém located in the state of Pará, Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais state, Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul state, Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro state and São Paulo in São Paulo state from July/2021 to July/2022. Access meteorological warnings dataset on Zenodo.

Science outreach articles

These articles present the research findings in an accessible format for broader audiences:

• Government climate authorities on social media: a study triggered by social media activities on the wettest day in a city's history. Read the history behind the paper on Springer Nature Community.The history behind the paper. It explains that the idea for the research arose from an extreme weather event that occurred in the city of Belo Horizonte in 2020.
• How do government climate authorities and citizens interact through social media? Read an overview of the results on Springer Nature Community. An overview of the communication patterns identified in the research, discussing implications for effective climate communication strategies.
• Como os cidadãos se engajam com a presença das autoridades climáticas nas redes sociais? Read an overview of the results on Academizando. An overview of the communication patterns identified in the research, discussing implications for effective climate communication strategies. Written in Portuguese.
• Autoridades climáticas governamentais nas redes sociais: um estudo desencadeado por atividades nas redes sociais no dia mais chuvoso da história de uma cidade Brasileira. Read an overview of the results on Academizando. The story behind the article. It explains that the idea for the research arose from an extreme climate event that occurred in the city of Belo Horizonte in 2020. Written in Portuguese.
• Long-term social presence and citizen engagement in multi-level and network governance of climate actions. Read an overview of the results on Zenodo. This is a general analysis of the fundamentals of research on social presence and engagement.

Conference Presentation

Reflections on Community Communications for Climate Adaptation and Preparedness through Information and Communication Technologies. View presentation slides on Zenodo. This presentation expands on the research findings, discussing how digital communication technologies can enhance community preparedness for climate-related events.

Research Podcast

Listen to a discussion about the research findings, methodology, and implications for climate communication:

Research Significance

This research contributes to several important areas:

• Understanding public engagement with official climate information
• Improving climate communication strategies on social media
• Enhancing community preparedness through digital platforms
• Developing frameworks for analyzing government-citizen interactions online

The findings are particularly relevant for:

• Climate communication researchers
• Social media analysts
• Government agencies managing official accounts
• Emergency response planners
• Science communication specialists

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. This research contributes to SDG 11 by analyzing how climate authorities in urban settings leverage social media to enhance community preparedness and resilience.

SDG 13: Climate Action. The study supports SDG 13 by exploring digital engagement strategies that promote public awareness and responsiveness during extreme weather events.

Other relevant works by Lesandro Ponciano

• Finding Volunteers' Engagement Profiles in Human Computation for Citizen Science Projects . Published in Human Computation Journal. Investigates volunteer engagement patterns in citizen science platforms.
• Volunteers' engagement in human computation for astronomy projects. Published in IEEE Computing in Science & Engineering. Explores how volunteers contribute to astronomical research through distributed computing.
• Citizen science terminology matters: Exploring key terms. Published in Citizen Science: Theory and Practice. A linguistic and conceptual analysis on the impact of terminology in citizen science.
• Considering human aspects on strategies for designing and managing distributed human computation. Published in Journal of Internet Services and Applications. Discusses design strategies for distributed computing systems that engage human participants.
• Agreement-based credibility assessment and task replication in human computation systems. Published in Future Generation Computer Systems. Proposes mechanisms to assess credibility in crowd-based systems.