Fangzhou Yang
The Cultural Politics of Documentary Communication and the Construction of Ecological Emotions
Email address
Names of Supervisors
Primary Supervisor: Antal Wozniak (Department of Communication and Media, University of Liverpool)
Secondary Supervisor: Maria Flood (Department of Languages, Cultures and Film, University of Liverpool)
Research topic
My research, situated within the field of climate communication, explores the influence of media representations on public emotional responses in the United Kingdom and the underlying mechanisms of their formation. By linking these two dimensions, it seeks to extend the study of public divisions beyond political attitudes and opinions to the emotional level, revealing the political and communicative logic behind emotional differences and the formation of consensus in climate communication.
The project consists of two parts. The first part adopts an empirical approach to examine how media communication shapes public emotional experiences and the moderating role of cultural–cognitive orientations. The second part focuses on the affective organization of media texts, analysing how they activate and guide emotional experiences in different socio-cognitive contexts, thereby explaining the mechanisms through which emotions are generated at the level of media production.
Key words
Climate Communication; Ecological Emotions; Cultural Theory; Documentary Studies; Cultural Politics; Political Psychology
Academic achievements
MA in Media and Broadcast Production, Queen’s University Belfast (dissertation mark of 7.
2022: Anjool Maldé Young Journalist of the Year award from the Anjool Maldé Trust, which recognises outstanding graduate-age talent in the UK. I was recognised for my documentary The Gift Tree, which explores Belfast’s One Million Trees environmental programme within the framework of the city’s Net-Zero Carbon Belfast initiative.