From The Fresh Prince to The Politician: climate change frames in American scripted television comedy 1990–2020

Abstract

Television has the potential to be a vector for mainstream audiences to learn about climate change and feel motivated to act. Comedic framings of climate change, while well-studied in television news and late-night comedies, remain under-explored in scripted television comedies. The goal of this study was to use frame analysis to understand temporal trends in climate comedy and analyze how the framing of climate change in comedy impacts action. I analyzed 134 episodes of television comedies that aired between 1990 and 2020, identifying eight emergent themes from the coding. There were temporal trends existing in the data, particularly a decrease in the use of ‘false positive’ frames of climate change and an increase in nihilistic framings. There were few positive frames of climate change, particularly those that promote action. Television has the potential to further both knowledge and action through comedies, but this potential remains largely unrealized.