Climate Change and Ideological Representations on Zhihu: A Critical Discourse Perspective

HRMARS - Climate change is a global concern, whereas public discourse around it varies widely. In China, while the government and mass media advocate international cooperation and individual responsibility, user discourse on Zhihu—China’s largest knowledge-based social media platform—reflects skepticism and resistance, potentially hindering public climate engagement. This study draws on Critical Discourse Analysis to examine ten high-engagement Zhihu posts (each with over 5,000 agreements) from 2023–2024. The findings show that Zhihu users employ rhetorical strategies such as sarcasm, parallelism, and comparison to frame themselves as powerless victims, constructing national identification and solidarity in opposition to external critiques, thereby resisting climate action and contesting dominant media narratives. This study enhances climate communicators' understanding of public climate narratives and identity construction on Chinese social media.