Carbon Capture and Storage in the Finnish Print Media

Abstract

General media coverage is one national level contextual factor influencing communication, public perceptions, and the acceptance of technology. In this study, Finnish newspaper articles with references to carbon capture and storage (CCS) from over a nearly two decades (1996–2015) were analyzed in order to gain an understanding of the scale of news coverage and level of public debate on CCS technology. The data included a total of 282 articles from 10 different newspapers. Four temporal phases according to the frequency of references to CCS were identified. These are as follows: 1996–2003, practically no coverage; 2004–2006, rising awareness; 2007–2010, peak of print media attention; and 2011–2015, decreasing interest. The volume of data seemed to follow the international issue‐attention cycle of CCS. The long time period revealed an obvious peak in media attention but this was much lower than in some other countries. Industry, administration, and experts were the actor groups which gained most frequently media attention. Fourteen percent of the data were deemed to be negatively disposed toward CCS technology. By covering a long search period, the paper contributes the studies focused on media attention to CCS at national level. The study confirms earlier results indicating the dropping of CCS from the print media agenda after 2009.