Persuasion Lab: Climate Narratives
Investigating corporate infrastructures of marketing and the shaping of public opinion and political agendas about the climate

Climate narratives

From fossil fuel companies promoting their green investments to volunteers mobilising for relief work after extreme climate events, social media newsfeeds are prime real estate for climate related discourse and action.

The lab runs and maintains a many-tentacled machine that collects data on political advertisements about the climate. This data is fed to different units that each reveal different aspects about the phenomenon of political advertising.

Browse one such unit through an interactive interface:

Climate Narratives Ads 2022

AN AD IS MORE THAN ITS VISUAL CONTENT

The circulation of ads, driven by targeting and optimisation, is as critical for understanding the impact of social media advertising, as the visual content of ads. What if each impression is considered an ad?

ADVERTISING BUSINESS MODELS BREAK SOLIDARITY

Platforms architect the exploitation of personal data for advertising, in the process heaping power and profit unto themselves, leaving behind a broken ground for shared experience of reality, and political action.

POLITICAL ADVERTISING IS A DUBIOUS CATEGORY

Classifying some ads as 'political' sustains the false idea that an entire class of advertisements is irrelevant for understanding how people’s opinions are shaped and worldviews formed.

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infrastructure

installation and permanent deployment

Initially deployed at esc medien kunst labor during Elevate Festival 2020, the infrastructure has supported the collection of millions of ads across over 200 countries and territories, accounting for over 50.000 different companies and pages. Since March 2020, the lab moved the infrastructure to the servers of network initiative mur.at, where it continues to operate.

data samples

find yourself in the data

Technicians of the lab offer a service where connections are made between visitors' digital interactions and the advertisements they recieve on Facebook. Through a participatory process of analysis, visualisation and investigation, our technicians help visitors diagnose their profiles and unpack ads data.

write to us at info@ad.watch