Nationalizing a global phenomenon: A study of how the press in 45 countries and territories portrays climate change (original) (raw)
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Conflicting Climate Change Frames in a Global Field of Media Discourse
Reducing global emissions will require a global cosmopolitan culture built from detailed attention to conflicting national climate change frames (interpretations) in media discourse. The authors analyze the global field of media climate change discourse using 17 diverse cases and 131 frames. They find four main conflicting dimensions of difference: validity of climate science, scale of ecological risk, scale of climate politics, and support for mitigation policy. These dimensions yield four clusters of cases producing a fractured global field. Positive values on the dimensions show modest association with emissions reductions. Data-mining media research is needed to determine trends in this global field.
Claims and frames: How the news media cover climate change
Climate change has been called “the greatest environmental challenge facing our planet” (President Obama, BBC News 2015), and also “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” (Sen. James Inhofe 2012). How could the science of climate change on the one hand be so clear, yet the response by society on the other be so contested? The answer, in part, is in the way the media have reported the issue. This lesson aims to provide students with insights into how the news media cover climate change. First, the students are introduced to key concepts in media and journalism studies as they relate to climate change. Then, working in groups, they are required to follow a specific climate change-related story in the news in order to collect data on the levels of coverage (i.e., the number of stories or mentions). They then analyze the content of the coverage. Students present their findings to their peers and class instructors in a formal presentation and write a follow-up, 1000-word paper on their learning experience. For those instructors who wish to introduce students to this topic without devoting such a large amount of teaching and seminar time to it, an abbreviated lesson plan consisting of two lectures, two seminars, and a shorter assignment is also provided. For instructors who wish to teach this lesson, but whose area of expertise lies outside journalism studies or media studies, some lecture notes are also included. People get most of their information about science from the media (Nelkin 1995). They cannot visit the icecaps, measure the glaciers or monitor atmospheric CO2 themselves; they rely on the news media to tell them. Also, people equate high levels of media coverage with salience (Ungar 2000). If something is in the news a lot, the public thinks it must be important. “News confers legitimacy,” as Michael Schudson (1989) puts it. The converse is also true: when a topic disappears from the media, most people forget about it. So whether the media cover climate change in the first place is important. But we also know that how they cover it matters too. For example, when climate change is described as a looming apocalypse, people may respond differently than when it is described as an economic and social opportunity. The media’s “framing” of climate change is therefore a key factor in promoting public engagement with the issue (Nisbet 2010). Another factor that has an impact on climate change coverage is how the media themselves operate. Reporters’ work conditions, how much they know about the subject, the amount of pressure they are under in their newsrooms, the number of calls they make or resources they consult all affect how they write about climate change (Boykoff & Boykoff 2007). D. Robbins & P. Brereton Climate change claims and frames Reporters and editors work in a field that has its own rules, norms, and values. These help them to decide what is news and what isn’t, which stories will make it into their newspapers, bulletins or websites and which won’t (Harcup & O’Neill 2001; Schultz 2007). Often, climate change does not align with “news values” (defined in “key terms” below) for a variety of reasons.
Is there an emerging transnational public sphere? In the context of general globalization trends, this question has gained importance in the communication sciences in recent years. In particular, transnational public spheres have been expected around global issues such as climate change. We therefore analyze whether climate change coverage from leading print media in 2327 countries worldwide shows signs of transnationalization. We look for a potential Europeanization, ‘Westernization’ or globalization in terms of issue attention levels, issue attention peaks and temporal trends. The analysis shows both transnational and transnationalizing issue-attention. However, such tendencies are limited to European and North American countries. There is no evidence for the existence or emergence of a global public sphere in our data.
The Hegemony of Global Politics: News Coverage of Climate Change in a Small Country
Society & Natural Resources, 2017
Researching media coverage of climate change may shed light on the different configurations of global and domestic factors affecting journalism and politics. This article analyzes climate change coverage in Portugal from 2007 to 2014 in comparison with 14 other countries. It shows that the Portuguese press tends to reproduce the global political agenda on climate change, mainly focusing on international events associated with global political decision-making processes, instead of providing a domesticated coverage, as observed in other countries. National and local levels of action are thus obscured. The interplay between global and domestic factors-including characteristics of Portugal's press and politics, such as national political leaders' lack of mobilization and communication on climate change, media's deference to powerful sources, and reliance on international news feeds-creates the conditions for global politics to play an hegemonic role in media representations, which is likely to influence public engagement with climate change.
Communicating climate change in regional news media
International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, 2009
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate regional variations in the international news coverage of climate change by comparing news reporting in two regional media systems.Design/methodology/approachA case study of how COP14 and a European union (EU) summit on climate change are covered by three Middle Eastern and one Danish newspaper.FindingsThe paper shows significant regional differences in the media coverage of climate change both in terms of quantity (numbers of news articles) and quality (editorial variations, sources, framing, use of graphics). Overall, the study suggests that regional differences in climate change coverage can be traced back to the financial resources, institutional practices and journalistic fields of different regional media systems.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is a pilot project designed to test the analytical significance of regional variations in international media coverage of climate change.Originality/valueWhereas global varia...
Framing Climate Change: A Content Analysis of Chinese Mainstream Newspapers From 2005 to 2015
International Journal of Communication, 2017
This study investigates the Chinese media coverage on climate change over the period 2005 to 2015. By analyzing 48 news articles from five mainstream Chinese newspapers, we identify six frames in climate change reporting: conflict, collaboration, human interest, attribution of responsibility, environmental and human impact, and leadership. The environmental and human impact frame is used the most, followed by the frames of attribution of responsibility, collaboration, and conflict. Results also reveal that the use of certain frames is associated with the use of certain information sources. This study suggests the overlooked fact that Chinese party-sponsored newspapers have been framing climate change from the perspective of global collective efforts.
Framing of climate issues and “COP21”: U.S. newspaper coverage vs Indian newspaper coverage
Environment and Social Psychology, 2016
Using content analysis method and the theory of framing, this study compares news coverage of climate issues around the Paris Climate Conference 2015, also known as “COP21”, between U.S. and Indian newspapers. The findings, based on an analysis of 278 stories published by four leading newspapers in these countries, suggest that international politics-oriented conflict and strategy frame and environmental consequences frame dominated both U.S. and Indian newspaper coverage. Another important finding of this study is the Indian newspaper coverage, compared to the U.S. newspaper coverage, included more information on social progress and innovations toward environment-friendly initiatives.