Abstract
ABSTRACT The 2022 heatwave in India formed part of a pattern of extreme weather events in the country, which are becoming more intense, frequent, or prolonged. The aim of this study is to explore media coverage of climate change and extreme events in a multilingual media context such as India. Data analysis of a large and diverse sample of Indian media coverage of the 2022 heatwave (n = 309) suggests that only 1 in every 7 news articles (14%) mentioned climate change in their heatwave coverage in the English press, and less than 10% in the Hindi, Telugu, and Marathi language news media. However, many English-language articles reported the links between climate change and the heatwave, although the figure was much lower for the other languages. Two Event Attribution studies analyzing the heatwave were widely quoted, albeit with some inaccuracies. Indian scientists were the most cited, whereas politicians and NGOs were largely absent, in contrast to previous research. Journalists regularly covered three aspects that affect the impact of the heatwave on ordinary people, namely emergency responses, disaster planning, and vulnerabilities. This study concludes by exploring theoretical and practical recommendations for media coverage of heatwaves and climate change.
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