Climate change is one of the most critical challenges of the twenty-first century. Public understanding of climate issues and of the goals regarding the climate transition is essential to translate awareness into concrete actions. In this context, social media platforms play a crucial role in disseminating information about energy transition and climate policy. To better understand the dynamics and the criticalities of information circulation, we propose a model that takes into account the supply and demand of information related to the Italian energy transition discourse. We conceptualise information supply as the production of content on Facebook, Instagram and GDELT (an online news database) and information demand as searches on the Google search engine. Our findings highlight responsiveness and temporal coupling between supply and demand, particularly during moments of heightened public attention triggered by significant external events. These responsive interactions reveal an overall adaptive information ecosystem. However, we also observe the presence of information voids, i.e. period in which little information is available on a given topic, which may limit public understanding and delay meaningful engagement and coordinated actions.
Scalco et al. (Tue,) studied this question.