Media, politics, and climate change: the ASA Task Force report and beyond

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis review essay focuses on the American Sociological Association (ASA) Task Force on Sociology and Global Climate Change final report, Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives. We take the report as a jumping off point to provide an overview of research on climate change in the media sphere and in the political sphere. The political sphere and the media sphere are key sites for the politics of climate change, where the meaning of the causes and consequences of climate change, as well as policy responses for mitigation and adaptation, are contested and negotiated among policy makers, corporate interests, environmental scientists, environmental movements and counter-movements. While there are substantial bodies of research on climate change within both the political and media spheres, less research specifically addresses how the social dynamics of one of these spheres shapes social interaction in the other sphere. Insights into the relationships between these spheres are suggested by the ASA Task Force report, but this area is under examined in current research. As such, we argue that there is a need for more research that bridges policy-oriented and media-oriented perspectives on climate change.