Open Letters and Climate Communication: The Professional Roles and Identities of Researchers in Times of Crisis

Open letters are seen as a politicized form of climate communication, and the professional roles researchers who engage in these communicative events thereby cast into question. Based on semi-structured interviews with initiators to open letters, this article argues that while communication can be constitutive influencing new emergent identities, there also overlaps continuations already established identities linked what appears communication. In case change, reaction against academic boundaries, but cementation reaffirmation one’s role follows institutional boundaries policies. The implications study we should not ascribe transformative power specific medium rather examine practices understandings communicators such activities.