Blogging and tweeting climate change in South Africa

Abstract

It is widely agreed that the mainstream mass media play an important role in the climate change debate by providing coverage and thus placing the issue on the public agenda; by providing their audiences with the key aspects of the debate and information related to mitigation and adaption; and, to a lesser extent, by driving policy agendas. Much research on media coverage of climate change is located in the North; and ‘the media’ is often taken to mean mainstream print newspaper media. As the body of literature exploring links between the media and climate change grows, there is a glaring absence of studies about and from the global South, and of a focus on ‘new’ forms of journalism and social media. With the global decline of newspaper circulation internationally and in South Africa, this article argues for an increased focus on digital journalism in the examination of the media coverage of climate change. Journalists’ blogs on the Mail & Guardian newspaper's Thought Leader site, and Twitter newsfeeds are analysed qualitatively to argue that while there is some similarity in the coverage between print and online media, the latter has the potential to reach audiences more effectively and immediately, with the growth of the mobile Internet in South Africa.