Alerters, Critics, and Objectivists: Researchers in Austrian Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change

Abstract

Newspapers are important fora for communicating scientific expertise to the public. Our article asks how researchers convey their expertise and link it to political actions in Austrian newspaper coverage of climate change. Based on researchers’ understanding of climate change and the degree of prescriptiveness of their policy recommendations, we identify three positions: alerters, critics, and objectivists. We illustrate how these three types advance different framings of the climate change debate and generate contradictory representations of climate science. Finally, we discuss our findings against the background of scholarly works on the nationally specific media representation of climate research.