What Journalists Worry and Write About: Comparing Journalists’ Frames of Climate Futures with Respective News Frames

Abstract

ABSTRACT Projections of climate futures are vital for understanding the consequences of present actions. While research in climate change communication intensely focused on media representations (e.g., the framing of climate futures), it overlooked the processes that affect the production of news frames by journalists, such as individual future visions, newsroom policies, and professional routines. To address this research gap, the present study conducted reconstruction interviews with journalists covering climate futures in four countries (i.e., India, Germany, South Africa, and the United States). It identified five journalists’ frames, ranging from “Technology for future” to “Towards apocalypse”. The paper then compared the findings with a content analysis of articles written by the journalists interviewed in this study. It finds that the journalists’ frames are more varied than those identified in news content. Journalists’ frames shaping coverage seem to be the exception rather than the rule.