An international seminar on humour as a vehicle for climate change communication

Protest placards are an important part of School Strike 4 Climate (SS4C) protest culture and illustrate how protesters view, understand and share their environmental concerns. Many of the placards use humour to convey the messages of their creators. Bringing together science communication and humour studies, this seminar examined the communicative functions of humour in Australian SS4C posters by asking to what extent protest signs can be understood as a vehicle of science communication. The seminar reveals how humorous protest placards become the means of grassroots creativity, exploring bottom-up science communication in an ambiguous, but accessible and enjoyable form. This collaborative project emerged from a SCOM2006 student report: CPAS student Matthew Hee led this collective writing adventure, now published in JCOM!