2014-The iconographic discourse of climate science, examined through the press coverage of Spanish daily newspapers (original) (raw)
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This paper explores the iconography of media coverage in regard to climate science through an analysis of selected Spanish daily newspapers – El País, El Mundo, Abc and Expansión – from 2004 to 2010. A content analysis of their iconographic elements explores further, how the Spanish press rhetorically manages the power of images to build its discourse on climate change, its causes, its consequences, the involved social agents and even its victims. According to the results, three out of four news stories on climate science were illustrated by some iconographic element, mainly photographs (61%) along with computer-generated imagery (CGI) (22%). The most frequent photos showed the so-called "frozen universe rhetoric" of climate change, with pictures of ice, snow and glaciers, symbolizing a fragile word in danger of melting due to rising temperatures. These findings support the argument that the image rhetoric may have improved the communication of climate change information from the scientific sphere to the public one despite certain weak points: a limited use of the most informative CGI in comparison to the more extensive use of photographs showing impacts and people. Previous research revealed that these visual themes make climate change more relevant to the audience, but tend to undermine the feeling of personal efficacy. This work on the iconographic discourse of climate science news is part of a broader research, focused on analyzing media coverage of climate change science in the Spanish daily press.
This paper explores the iconography of the media coverage on climate science through selected Spanish daily newspapers - El País, El Mundo, ABC and Expansión - from 2004 to 2010. We have analyzed the content of the iconographic elements to know further about how the Spanish press has managed the power of the image to rhetorically build its discourse on climate change, its causes, its consequences, the involved social agents and even their victims. According to our main results three out of four news stories on climate science are illustrated by some kind of iconographic element, mainly photographs (61%) along with computer generated images (CGI) (22%); the most frequent photos show -what we have called- the "frozen universe rhetoric" of climate change with pictures including ice, snow and glaciers; the most common CGI are maps, followed by graphs, charts and visual representations of complex processes. This synchronic and diachronic study has revealed that the rhetoric of the image could have improved the transmission of information about a complex phenomenon such as climate change from scientific sphere to the public. This work about iconographic discourse on climate science news stories is part of a broader research focused on analyzing media coverage about climate change science in the Spanish daily press.
Science in pictures: Visual representation of climate change in Spain’s television news
Public Understanding of Science, 2013
The images used by the media to represent science can help people’s understanding of complex processes and create meaningful links with audiences. This is particularly relevant in the case of climate change (CC), an important phenomenon that, nevertheless, is often perceived as a remote issue, with no relevance to daily life. This article presents the main results of a research on the images used in television news to represent CC. From a sample of 1476.4 hours of Spanish television news programmes, a content analysis of 78 stories on climate change was carried out. This was complemented with six semi-structured interviews at five TV newsrooms. Results indicate that the low rate of coverage of CC can be related to the scarcity of attractive images available to the channels.
Ambiente & Sociedade
On the basis of media´s responsibility with regard of the environment, this study focuses on a new aspect within the research about media coverage of climate change: the presence of elements that would contribute to make this phenomenon known and understood, and to guide readers on how to individually tackle it. The method used was content analysis of digital editions of the most widely read general information newspapers in 2017. Findings suggest that newspapers hardly include simple explanations about climate change; they contextualize the phenomenon addressing its causes and effects, but these still prevail over the former; they provide citizens scarce guidance on how to combat it; and they make limited use of visual resources. These data provide an interesting starting point for future studies on the effectiveness of formative elements to encourage readers’ involvement.
Communication & Society, 2021
In the last two years, since the publication of the latest IPCC reports (IPCC, 2018 & 2020), greater alarm in the scientific, media and social areas has elevated the climate crisis to an emergency level. The social perception of the risk for people and the communication of this emergency has become a complex social phenomenon being constantly updated. This article sets out the results of the content analysis for communications on climate change (CC) in the main Spanish press, radio and television media and their respective Twitter accounts. A structural sampling has been used to identify the different media and supports to be analyzed. The time segment of the Climate Week NYC 2019 was chosen because key dates for the objectives of the study converge there. The Decalogue of Recommendations for Reporting on Climate Change (ECODES, 2018)”, endorsed by over 80 media sources in Spain in the years 2018 and 2019, brings together a series of variables for climate change communication analys...
Seeing climate change: the visual construction of global warming in Canadian national print media
cultural geographies, 2011
Visual communication is a critical but frequently under-estimated contributor to the 'social and cultural life' of environmental issues. This paper uses both content and discourse analysis to examine how visual communication is deployed in print media coverage of climate change issues in Canada. The Canadian case is internationally significant, given that Canada ratified the Kyoto Protocol but has since become obstructionist on the global stage. Our analysis, which focuses on image-language interactions, leads us to conclude that climate change is being inconsistently narrated to Canadians in this regard. While the power of visual communication comes from its ability to blend fact and emotion, to engage audiences, and to add narrative complexity to linguistic claims (and vice versa), we find instead a profound disjuncture between images and text in climate change coverage. In this case, visual and linguistic communication tend to pull in different narrative directions, advancing unrelated and sometimes contradictory claims that frequently confuse different aspects and positions on climate change.
post(s), 2016
Las noticias oficiales sobre cambio climático (CC) implícitamente educan a los lectores. En un estudio previo se reconstruyeron representaciones educativas emergentes de sus textos (14) e imágenes (35) a través de análisis de contenido cualitativo. El presente estudio expande dicho análisis a través del análisis de contenido cuantitativo. Un resultado prominente demuestra que los textos incluyen principalmente datos, objetivos, causas y consecuencias del CC lo que se limita a conocimientos y comprensión. La producción de noticias se mantiene baja y orientada hacia la política. Se recomienda mayor estudio incluyendo otros productores de noticias sobre CC.
Science as rhetoric in media discourses on climate change
2008
This article aims to analyse and describe the organization of reported speech in a corpus of Portuguese newspaper articles, as well as the way such texts function in terms of rhetoric and argumentation. The focus is on media discourse on the science (s) of climate change, ...
Framing texts and images of Latin America’s official, online climate change news’ articles
Razón y Palabra, 2017
The purpose of this study is to reconstruct educational frames in texts and images of official, online climate change news’ articles in Latin America, which have remained largely unexplored. Qualitative content analysis of regional news in 2014 was applied to reconstruct educational frames found in texts (14) and images (35). Findings showed mainly educational frames aimed at cognitive processes such as knowledge acquisition and comprehension. Articles presented in a hypertextual environment may have implications for readers’ learning. Further study is required for comparative purposes.