While climate change is transforming the globe, its presence in contemporary fiction is surprisingly limited.
A recent analysis highlights that over 90 percent of the short stories published in the past ten years by The New Yorker fail to engage with climate change or significant environmental issues.
This finding raises questions about the priorities of contemporary fiction and its reflection of current global challenges.
Conducted by researchers from Rice University and Colby College, the study focused on The New Yorker because of its reputation for both climate journalism and literary fiction.
Examining Fiction’s Role
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, the study’s lead author and associate professor at Rice University, emphasized the broader impacts of climate change, stating, “In addition to ecological and geophysical impacts, climate change exacerbates economic, political, and social problems.”
He noted that avoiding these issues in storytelling could contribute to future catastrophes. Schneider-Mayerson, along with faculty and students from Colby College, chose to analyze fiction over nonfiction to explore its influence on societal norms and perceptions.
They utilized a tool called the Strategic Environmental Narratives codebook to examine how environmental themes are represented in fiction. The analysis covered 474 short stories from The New Yorker published between 2014 and 2023.
Key Findings
The investigation revealed that only 10.1 percent of the stories addressed climate change. Even when considering any environmental issue, the percentage only rose to 20.9 percent, often mentioned superficially.
Remarkably, this trend remained consistent throughout the decade, despite increasing awareness and urgency around climate issues.
Comparing with Hollywood
The researchers were taken aback by the comparison with mainstream movies, which have increasingly incorporated climate themes over time. In contrast, literary fiction remained stagnant in its engagement with such topics.
Schneider-Mayerson highlighted, “We found that the presence of climate change was nearly the same in the overlapping years, suggesting that there is an unspoken ‘cultural climate consensus’ about how often to include it.”
The study suggests that the literary world has yet to reflect the growing prevalence of climate change narratives seen in other media forms.
Redefining a “Good Story”
This research challenges creators to reconsider what constitutes a worthwhile narrative in an era of environmental crisis. Schneider-Mayerson questions, “What qualifies as a ‘good story’ in the midst of a climate crisis that threatens everything we hold dear?”
He argues that fiction need not be didactic but should acknowledge the changing realities of the world. Simple incorporations of contemporary issues could subtly shift public perceptions and expectations.
The study is published in the journal Environmental Communication.
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Original Story at www.earth.com