[Commlist] new book: Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power

new book

/Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power/ (Oxford 
University Press, 2025) by Hanna E. Morris (Assistant Professor, 
University of Toronto)

In /Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power/, 
media scholar Hanna E. Morris reveals how national anxieties following 
the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump have shaped American news 
coverage of climate change in ways that severely limit how it has come 
to be known, imagined, and contended with. Looking at climate change 
reporting across prominent and ideologically diverse U.S. newspapers and 
magazines over the past decade, the book traces how news media create an 
illusion of control in the present through nostalgic and heroic stories 
of the past. Morris identifies a new mode of reactionary politics called 
“apocalyptic authoritarianism” to describe the post-2016 alignment of 
historically privileged figures united by a common enemy of the “new” 
New Left and a shared appeal to fears of “total crisis.” Their 
antidemocratic paradigm portends national and planetary disarray if 
progressive social and climate justice “warriors” are not controlled at 
home and if “unruly masses” of climate migrants are not contained 
abroad. Ultimately, Morris calls for more transformative forms of 
climate journalism capable of facilitating—as opposed to 
impeding—robustly democratic responses to climate change.

Overview of chapters:
Introduction: Climate Journalism and Apocalyptic Authoritarianism in the 
United States

Chapter 1: A New Marshall Plan for the Climate: Reclaiming National and 
Journalistic Authority through the Myth of American Exceptionalism

Chapter 2: American Earth: Planetary Optics of Control

Chapter 3: Tyrant of a Trope: Visionary Sage Figure

Chapter 4: Climate Death-World and Life-World

Conclusion: Alternative Climate and Journalism Futures
The e-book version of /Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, 
Media, and Power/ (Oxford University Press, 2025) is now available and 
can be accessed _here <https://academic.oup.com/book/59887>_: 
_https://academic.oup.com/book/59887 <https://academic.oup.com/book/59887>_
The print version is also now available for pre-order from most 
booksellers or from _Oxford University Press's website directly 
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/apocalyptic-authoritarianism-9780197807675?cc=ca&lang=en&;>_ (with 
the paperback and hardback version out June 6 in North America, and 
worldwide on August 23): 
_https://global.oup.com/academic/product/apocalyptic-authoritarianism-9780197807675?cc=ca&lang=en&; 
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/apocalyptic-authoritarianism-9780197807675?cc=ca&lang=en&;>_

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