The European Media Portrayal of Climate Change: Implications for the Social Mobilization towards Climate Action

Alexandre O Tavares,Laurence B Couldrick,Julia James,Sinead Mellett,Diego S Intrigliolo,Neide P Areia,Jean-François Berthoumieu

doi:10.3390/su12208300

Abstract

Beyond other social actors, such as policymakers and scholars, common citizens are also expected to actively engage with climate change, by adopting sustainable actions and supporting environmental policies. However, and despite the actual growing of environment-related social movements, a kind of inertia still prevails in the social climate of our society. The media should play a key role in promoting, among common individuals, the adoption of new and more sustainable practices. However, it is argued that the media seems to be failing to effectively address the climate crisis. As such, this study aims to identify the main weaknesses of climate change media communication to further discuss possible opportunities of communication improvements. For that, 1609 news articles published between 2017 and 2018 in five European countries were analyzed in-depth, through quantitative content analysis. The news’ general characteristics, specifically reported themes, and the specificities of actors’ discourses were taken into account for the analysis. It was verified that the European media tends to report climate change by using distant (e.g., future-focused) and outcome (e.g., threatening messages) framings, based on non-resilient, scientific, and political narratives, whilst overlooking the role of civil society on adapting to climate change. These results demonstrate that instead of promoting society’s climate action, the media may be contributing to a widespread social apathy about the climate and the disengagement of individuals regarding environment-related matters. Evidence-based forms of improving the media’s communication on climate change will be further discussed.

Highlights

Climate change is arguably the most threatening and urgent transnational challenge of our times, demanding public attention and action [1]
We are witnessing a growth of social movements pressing for a political climate change response [4,5]
One can argue that these social movements may be effective in raising awareness to the actual climate crisis but ineffective in driving a real social change with individuals actively engaging with environment-related issues

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is arguably the most threatening and urgent transnational challenge of our times, demanding public attention and action [1]. The actual climate crisis is pushing several research sectors and activity to rapidly develop and implement innovative forms of mitigating and adapting to the climate challenge. Several societal spheres, including common individuals, are called upon to adopt new ways of thinking and behaving in order to adapt to climate change [2,3]. We are witnessing a growth of social movements pressing for a political climate change response [4,5]. One can argue that these social movements may be effective in raising awareness to the actual climate crisis but ineffective in driving a real social change with individuals actively engaging with environment-related issues. It has been proven that a social inertia concerning climate still prevails in our society, constraining the development and implementation of effective measures to address climate change [6]

Objectives

Methods

Results