Klimawandel und Klimaschutzmaßnahmen: Eine kontrastive Untersuchung der Webkommunikation des deutschen und des italienischen Umweltministeriums

The paper presents the results of a study of web communication of the German and the Italian Ministry of Environment on climate change and climate protection measures. The central question of how the institutions communicate climate change, convey to their citizens the policy measures needed to achieve climate protection goals and encourage them to improve their own carbon footprint is answered very differently on the two websites. Based on communication science and linguistics, the paper shows that the communication on the website of the German Ministry of Environment is clearly oriented towards overriding communication goals and always has the citizens in mind. In turn, the communication on the website of the Italian Ministry of Environment largely ignores the latter, although there is a comparatively greater need for communication on the topic in Italy than in Germany which should be met at institutional level.