BEYOND CITATIONS: AN ALTMETRIC ANALYSIS OF CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH IN GLOBAL DISCOURSE
Abstract
Climate change research has grown rapidly over the past two decades, yet its societal impact depends not only on scholarly recognition but also on how it is represented in media, social platforms, and policy discourse. This study applies an altmetric analysis to a large corpus of climate change publications (125,933 articles), integrating cross-platform attention data (2.1 million) with framing, sentiment, and geographical indicators. Results show that climate change scholarship attracts broad attention across X/Twitter, news outlets, blogs, Wikipedia, and policy documents, though patterns of visibility remain uneven. Social media provides short-lived surges of attention, while news and Wikipedia confer more sustained legitimacy. Policy mentions are rare but disproportionately concentrated in high-prestige journals and elite institutions, highlighting structural inequalities in research uptake. Geographic analysis reveals a persistent dominance of Global North voices, despite the heightened vulnerability of Global South regions. Thematic classification indicates that adaptation and risk dominate global discourse, while equity receives less consistent focus. This study demonstrates the value of altmetrics as a complement to bibliometrics, offering new insights into the pathways through which climate research shapes public and policy debates. Findings underscore the need for inclusive strategies that elevate marginalized voices and enhance the policy relevance of climate science.
Keywords: Climate Change, Altmetrics, Framing, Adaptation, Sentiment, Policy Impact, Global South.
