Abstract
This article explores British newspaper descriptions of the impact of climate change across three time periods. It shows a reduction in representing the consequences of climate change as ‘out of human control’. It also shows a decrease in adopting alarming and uncertain descriptions within the centre-left group, whereas mocking the effects of climate change is a peculiarity of right-leaning narratives. The complexity of climate narratives produces a variety of representations of the consequences of climate change, which in turn might increase ‘uncertainty’ in public understanding of climate change.
Highlights
Previous findings highlighted that the public perceives a generalised alarmism spread by media messages around climate change in the United Kingdom (Whitmarsh, 2011), which in turn is counterproductive for individual engagement (O’Neill and NicholsonCole, 2009)
To explore the effect of both political orientation and bloc of years on the representation of the consequences of climate change, a Multinomial Logistic Regression was performed given that the categories included in this frame are not ordered
The severe consequences of climate change can be controlled through intervention. (Risbey, 2008) The consequences of climate change are irreversible/beyond human control
Summary
Previous findings highlighted that the public perceives a generalised alarmism spread by media messages around climate change in the United Kingdom (Whitmarsh, 2011), which in turn is counterproductive for individual engagement (O’Neill and NicholsonCole, 2009). While the literature focuses on public reaction to specific media messages, limited efforts have been devoted to exploring the variety of representations of the effects of climate change by British newspapers. The media are immersed in specific political systems, which in turn have an influence on the media model. This becomes relevant when considering that 60% of national newspaper circulation in the United Kingdom is controlled by two companies (Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp UK and Lord Rothermere’s Daily Mail Group). 208), especially in news content (see Curtice, 1999) This partisan division is evident when considering the representation of the consequences of climate change by newspapers. Some studies showed that reference to the catastrophic effects of climate change is a peculiarity of left-leaning UK newspapers (Carvalho, 2005, 2007), whereas mockery is characteristic of the right-wing (Ereaut and Segnit, 2006)
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