Objectification

Objectification makes the unknown known by transforming it into something concrete we may perceive and experience with our senses. It is a kind of materialisation of ab­stract ideas, which sometimes occur not least in the media, by representing the ideas as concrete phenomena existing in the physical world. “What is perceived replaces what is conceived”, writes Moscovici (2000: 51). When, for example, the media attach specific storms, heat waves or floods to climate change the abstract phenomenon is objectified. In science, climate change is an abstract, long-term phenomenon of statistical character, that is, based on probability calculus, which is difficult to grasp experientially. More frequent storms, intensive heat waves, etc., may certainly follow as a result of global warming, but as pointed out by Edwards (2001: 33) “the inherent variability of weather makes it impossible to attribute individual storms, floods, droughts or hurricanes to changes in the global climate”.

Objectifying is, according to Moscovici (2000) a much more active process than anchoring which occurs almost automatically each time we are confronted with new phenomena. Objectifying, that is turning an unfamiliar idea into concrete reality requires more effort. Moscovici’s (2007/1961) own research on the spread of psychoanalytic thinking in French society is essentially a study of how the abstract and relational con­cepts of psychoanalysis – the unconscious, ego, libido, complexes, neuroses, etc. – is objectified into concrete elements in public thinking. Going back to our climate change example objectification occurs when ordinary signs in the nature as a summer heat, an autumn storm, or a short winter are regarded as concrete anecdotal evidence of climate change. A new complex and abstract phenomenon is thereby materialised into familiar frames of references and transformed into everyday common sense. That people conflate weather and climate change has been shown in different studies (see Bostrom & Lashof 2007). Weather, “the state of the atmosphere at a definite time and place with respect to heat or cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness” (Bostrom, et al. 1994) replaces climate, “the average course or condition of the weather at a par­ticular place over a period of many years, as exhibited in absolute extremes, means, and frequencies of given departures from these means, of temperature, wind, velocity, precipitation, and other weather elements” (Bostrom, et al. 1994).

Objectification also appears in the media when scientific concepts are transformed into pictures which rather than the original thoughts and ideas become elements of the phenomena. Some years ago, when cloning was on the agenda in the public sphere, media published pictures of “Dolly the sheep” that became an objectification of modern biotechnology or genetic engineering (Bauer & Gaskell 1999). She was the first mammal to be cloned. Today newspapers expose photographs of retreating glaciers, melting polarice, polar bears and flooding illustrating the consequences of climate change (Smith & Joffe 2009). That these images objectifies climate change is further shown by the fact that melting glaciers and polar ice, that is, concrete visual objects, are the single larg­est categories of free associations by the public when confronted with the word global warming (Leiserowitz 2007).

Emotional Objectification

We may talk about emotional objectification when there is a strong emotional component involved, for example when concrete and frightening images such as people escaping severe floods, dead cattle on parched soil, or dramatic forest fires are repeatedly used by the media in the reporting of climate change (see Höijer 2010; Smith & Joffe 2009). One should remember that events like this always appear also without climate change, and that it is not these events per se that constitute global warming (see above).

“To objectify is to discover the iconic quality of an imprecise idea or being, to repro­duce a concept in an image”, writes Moscovici further (1984b: 38), and some visuals in the media may through a process of emotional objectification become icons of more abstract issues. Studies show, for example, that pictures of animals appealing to emo­tions of compassion, such as sweet and cuddly polar bears on melting ice or young arctic foxes are common in the media reporting of climate change (Höijer 2010; Smith & Joffe 2009). According to O’Neill and Hulme (in press) polar bears are now the most well understood icon of climate change by the public that is drawn to this image by empathy. In the media these wild predatory animals are conceptualized as innocent victims of climate change by beautiful images of mother and cub, lonely polar bears on a small ice floes or struggling to swim to safety. Their furs are pure and white as to underline their innocence. Alternative pictures of polar bears attacking seals and tearing them into eatable pieces would never objectify climate change in the same way.

Personification

In objectification through personification an idea or phenomenon is linked to specific persons such as when Freud personifies psychoanalysis or Gandhi political struggle through non-violence. To attach something to well-known public persons is a common discursive mechanism in the media in order to draw attention and popularise courses of events. In the case of climate change we can see how the media draw on familiar domestic meteorologists, key political figures, and celebrities. Smith and Joffe (2009), for example, found that photographs of the former Vice-President Al Gore regularly were accompanying news articles on climate change in the press. He was presented as an ambassador of the climate change and personified not only this issue but also interna­tional efforts to solve the problem. Similarly celebrities and popular meteorologists are frequently used as spokesmen for the issue and often represented in ways that personify climate-friendly behaviour (Berglez, Höijer & Olausson 2009; Smith & Joffe 2009). As persons they gradually come to materialize or objectify the complex phenomenon of climate change with its relations to nature and human and political life in general. In the end we need only to say, for example, Al Gore, to get people to think about climate change. To this contribute of course also his film “An Inconvenient Truth”.

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