This paper seeks to reassess the potential of new media in transnational political communication. It questions whether a wide availability of online news sources offering diverse views could become useful means in overcoming national (cultural and geographic) barriers in reporting about global political matters. The discussion here moves on several levels of analysis. First, it draws attention to the impact of the Internet on political communication. By relying on results obtained from research studies in international (European) news communication, it also stresses the significance of contextual factors (local political, economic and cultural conditions) in transnational political communication. The paper proposes that the Internet and social media applications (blogs, social forums) may help journalists as well as citizens to retrieve background information on complex issues of global character. Simultaneously, such online communication where common interests of citizens are recognized and addressed in less formal manner may help different audiences to develop a sense of transnational understanding which could enrich news and views communicated. On the other hand, this paper also stresses that there is no universal culture of communication; instead, all characteristics of communication are related to different political, economic, social and cultural conditions where these traditions, values and norms have developed and are sustained.

Abrupt increase in number of scientific publications on climate change (CC) communication makes it difficult to track development of this research area. Aiming to map the main directions of the CC communication research this paper reviews literature in particular discussing a set of sampled peer-reviewed articles dealing with CC communication issues and aiming to sketch the pats, the presence, and the future of the research area. First of all, this paper identifies and discusses the main contributors of the research area (e.g., scientific journals and authors involved). Second of all, it questions approaches taken and discussed in sampled studies. Paper concludes in suggesting that CC communication is a quickly developing and expanding area with strong roots in research fields of risk management, scientific communication, and environmental politics. Recently studies dealing with CC communication issues are often recognized as rather independent research area represented by a group of well-known scholars and scholarly journals carrying necessary discussions of the field and uniting the discourse. The past and the present research on CC communication is questioning issues mainly related to media coverage and public understanding – those are the essential approaches in communication sciences. The future of CC communication research is expected to eliminate existing deficit of studies related on how new media and new communication technologies are changing and influencing CC communication processes.

The article discusses how new communication and information technologies have brought changes in the contemporary social and political life. It is stated that the increasing use of the Internet and new mobile and wireless devices have brought social changes and also changed the established standards of how people socialize. It is mentioned that the debate regarding deliberative democracy has become more complicated due to online communication.

Debates related to the quality of online discussions are quickly engaging scholars from different fields, but still, there is no single answer if we can expect online discussions to be deliberative enough for the establishment and maintenance of a well-functioning public sphere online. In this paper, I presume that respect is an essential category determining overall quality of online public discussions. Therefore, I assess if discussions from a preselected Facebook page on climate change are respectful. I find that in comparison to similar face-to-face settings, members of preselected discussions are quite respectful to each other. On the other hand, foul language is often used to address outside actors or groups. In turn, I link these results to the phenomenon of audience polarization online and conclude that in my sample, discussions cannot be of good quality because they are dominated by similarly thinking members, which possibly leads to polarization and generation of support and/or hate groups.