Multimodal Misinformation: How Climate Obstruction Is Constructed on TikTok

This article examines how conspiratorial climate claims are multimodally constructed andemotionally mobilized on TikTok, advancing understanding of multimodal climatemisinformation in short-form audiovisual content. Despite the growing prominence ofaudiovisual and conspiratorial climate misinformation, research has largely focused on text-based analyses and mainstream platforms, overlooking how meaning, affect, and attention areorganized through multimodal communication on visual-first, sound-on platforms. Addressingthis gap, the study asks: What thematic patterns emerge from a large corpus of TikTok videos onclimate and weather modification? How are conspiratorial climate narratives constructed throughthe integration of visual, sonic, and textual cues, and how do these narratives mobilize emotionalengagement? Methodologically, the study employs a mixed-methods design that combinescomputational multimodal topic modeling of 7,658 TikTok videos with theory-informedqualitative multimodal framing analysis of 27 topics (1,220 posts). Drawing on framing theory,social semiotics, and the sociology of emotions, the analysis shows how conspiratorial meaningis assembled distributively across posts and modes. Findings identify a distinct variant of climateconspiracy that affirms climate change as real, human-caused, and urgent, while reframing itscause as covert technological intervention by powerful actors. These narratives fall outsideestablished climate misinformation typologies, often reliant on isolated, text-based signals.Conspiratorial framing mobilizes an oscillation between fear and epistemic emotions such ascuriosity, redirecting attention from the climate crisis toward sustained conspiratorialinvestigation. The study further demonstrates how multimodal misinformation on TikTok canfunction as a form of climate obstruction by reshaping emotional orientation and divertingengagement away from climate action.