News Coverage Of Climate Change Research Articles

News coverage of climate change and generation Z

This study examines 2021 and 2022 news coverage of Generation Z and climate change to understand how this discursive relationship is constructed. This is important to understanding how Generation Z’s climate change activism is perceived by other groups such as other generations, activist groups, and journalists. This study answers the central question: In what ways do news articles construct and represent the relationship between Generation Z, climate change, activism, and intergenerational relationships? The study identifies five common discourses from the most popular news articles on the subject that reflect nuances in reporting and discursive construction of the group and issue: (1) climate change as inherited and chosen by Generation Z, (2) passive and active motivations for activism, (3) activism negatively impacting relationships with older groups, (4) future responsibilities, and (5) overuse of figureheads. The nuances of these news discourses impact opinions of Generation Z and the impact the group have on climate change activism with the potential to impact activist group outreach strategies, policy development, and relationships with the news media.

Framing Climate Change on TV News Websites: A Study of Nile News, Sky News Arabia, and CGTN Arabic

The issue of climate change has imposed itself on the news media's agenda, especially after the United States' decision to abandon and then return to the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. The current study focuses on climate change framing on TV news websites; namely, Nile News, Sky News Arabia, and CGTN Arabic. This was done using quantitative content analysis using framing theory. News coverage has varied in terms of publication rates on climate change (Sky News= 2820; Nile News= 178; CGTN Arabic= 105). Results indicated that attribution of responsibility, disaster, political struggle, and economic consequence frames dominated the news coverage of climate change during the sampling period. The results also showed the United States and China as the most mentioned countries in the news coverage of climate change. The current study can be added to literature that examines the coverage of environmental issues in the news media. In addition, it opens horizons about research on media coverage of climate change and its effects on peoples.

Global climate marches sharply raise attention to climate change: Analysis of climate search behavior in 46 countries

We examine attention to climate change in 46 countries across six continents from 2015 through 2019 by analyzing internet search activity in ten languages. We find that information seeking about climate change, measured by internet searches, notably increased in 2019 relative to prior years. Next, we analyze the impact of global climate marches on internet search activity and find that climate activist events are powerful drivers of attention compared to political events (United Nations Climate Change Conferences) and temperature abnormalities. To explore the role of media coverage, we estimate the effects of climate marches while controlling for weekly news coverage of climate change and find evidence supporting the notion of media attention mediating the effects of climate protests. Lastly, we quantify the duration of the increases in information seeking produced by these events. We find the durations are short-lived, with attention only staying above pre-event levels for several days. As the literature to date has paid scarce attention to public demonstrations as sources of influence on the public's attention to climate change, we suggest these results implore the field to focus more research on the impacts of climate activist events.

Deepening the concept of ‘compelling arguments’

AbstractThis study examines the effects of both the substantive and affective dimensions of issue attributes in the news coverage of climate change on the public’s perception of the importance of this environmental issue. Results from our analysis show that the four affective dimensions (e.g., positive and negative emotions, anger, and sadness) of the three attributes (e.g., existence, effects, and solutions) exerted strong influence on public issue priority. This study extends the concept of compelling arguments in agenda setting research by suggesting that compelling arguments effects are not solely dependent on substantive attributes. Their affective dimensions are influential, as well.

The Pope, Politics, and Climate Change: An Experimental Test of the Influence of News about Pope Francis on American Climate Change Attitudes and Intentions

News coverage of climate change has expanded beyond a focus on science to include stories relating the topic to religion, particularly following Pope Francis’ 2015 call for Catholics to address climate change as a moral responsibility. We tested how effective Pope Francis is as a messenger on the topic of climate change. A 2 (Pope: present or absent in the story) X 2 (news story topic: climate change or poverty) between-subjects experiment (N = 415) revealed that politically Independent participants reported more negative attitudes and lower behavioral intentions when the Pope was featured in a story than when he was not. Also, Catholic Democrats reported stronger climate change policy support when the Pope was featured in a story than when he was not, but Catholic Independents were more supportive when the Pope was not featured, regardless of topic. Results suggest religion and politics intersect to shape responses to climate messengers.

Nationalizing a global phenomenon: A study of how the press in 45 countries and territories portrays climate change

This study investigates the news coverage of climate change in 45 different countries and territories. Using the news framing approach, this study identifies the connections between several national socioeconomic, governance, and environmental traits and the portrayals of climate change. Although climate change is a global issue that affects every country in the world, how the news media frame it varies from country to country. Such a variation is related to each country’s economic development, climate severity, and governance. The findings of this study contribute to framing literature by assessing frame use in national contexts, filling in the gap in the application of this theoretical framework.

Framing Climate Change: Economics, Ideology, and Uncertainty in American News Media Content From 1988 to 2014

The news media play a seminal role in shaping public attitudes on a wide range of issues – climate change included. As climate change has risen in salience, the average American is much more likely to be exposed to news coverage now than in the past. Yet, the content of these news stories has been underexplored in academic literature, despite likely playing an important part in fostering or inhibiting public support and engagement in climate action. In this paper we use a combination of automated and manual content analysis of the most influential media sources in the U.S., including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press, to illustrate the prevalence of different frames in the news coverage of climate change and their dynamics over time. We focus on three types of frames, based on previous research: economic costs and benefits associated with climate mitigation, appeals to conservative and free market values and principles, and uncertainties and risk surrounding climate change. We find that many of the frames found to reduce people’s propensity to support and engage in climate action have been on the decline in the mainstream media, such as frames emphasizing potential economic harms of climate mitigation policy or uncertainty. At the same time, frames conducive to such engagement by the general public have been on the rise, such as those highlighting economic benefits of climate action. News content is also more likely now than in the past to use language emphasizing risk and danger, and to use the present tense. To the extent that citizens may not be informed of the gravity of the risk posed by uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions, or discount threats that appear to be far in the future, these are welcome developments.

Newspaper Framing of Climate Change and Sustainability Issues in India

This article describes how climate change influences nature and human life and it is the basis for social and economic development. News reporting on climate change must address the challenges in the deeper social and economic dimensions of sustainable development. The news coverage of climate change and sustainability issues helps people to better understand the concepts and perspectives of environment. This article aims to examine how dominant newspapers in Tamil Nadu have framed climate change and sustainability issues. This is done by analyzing climate change articles (N = 120) in two mainstream newspapers – The Hindu in English and the Daily Thanthi in Tamil. Climate change communication in regional newspapers and local news stories may increase the public's interest and knowledge level regarding climate change and sustainability issues.

Characterizing the climate issue context in Mexico: reporting on climate change in Mexican newspapers, 1996–2009

Mexico stands out as an exception in the climate policy arena. In 2012, the Mexican government legislated a long-term greenhouse gas emissions reduction target, a feat which other large emerging economies (and many industrialized countries) have not been able to match. An analysis of newspaper coverage of climate change in Mexico from 1996 to 2009 offers insight on the issue context within which Mexico pursued its unilateral action. Like in many developing countries, climate change news coverage in Mexico increased steadily over the 15-year study period, with a significant increase in attention to the issue in 2007. Initially, news coverage of climate change in Mexico was dominated by framings tying climate change to weather patterns and adverse impacts at national and sub-national levels. As news coverage of the climate issue matured, there was an increase in frames linking climate change to domestic economic and energy concerns. A review of the secondary literature on climate change news coverage in other countries in the Global South suggests this domestic focus, in discussions both of climate impacts and of greenhouse gas emissions drivers, is unusual and may offer some insight into the antecedents of Mexico’s climate policy leadership.

The Hegemony of Global Politics: News Coverage of Climate Change in a Small Country

ABSTRACTResearching media coverage of climate change may shed light on the different configurations of global and domestic factors affecting journalism and politics. This article analyzes climate change coverage in Portugal from 2007 to 2014 in comparison with 14 other countries. It shows that the Portuguese press tends to reproduce the global political agenda on climate change, mainly focusing on international events associated with global political decision-making processes, instead of providing a domesticated coverage, as observed in other countries. National and local levels of action are thus obscured. The interplay between global and domestic factors—including characteristics of Portugal’s press and politics, such as national political leaders’ lack of mobilization and communication on climate change, media’s deference to powerful sources, and reliance on international news feeds—creates the conditions for global politics to play an hegemonic role in media representations, which is likely to influence public engagement with climate change.

The Impact of Climate Change–Related Imagery and Text on Public Opinion and Behavior Change

This experimental study investigates how imagery and text in news coverage of climate change affect perceptions of issue importance, efficacy, and intentions to conserve energy and engage in climate change-related political behavior. The results reveal that images of solar panels and texts that discuss actions to address climate change increase individuals’ perceptions of efficacy. Perceived efficacy and issue importance each have a positive association with behavior change. In contrast to previous studies, the present investigation finds no evidence that exposure to images of either climate impacts or climate pollution negatively influence perceived efficacy or positively influence perceived issue importance.

Strijd om het klimaat? De beeldvorming over klimaatverandering tijdens de klimaattop te Cancún in Vlaamse kwaliteitskranten

Climate struggle: news coverage of climate change during the climate summit in Cancún in Flemish quality newspapers Climate struggle: news coverage of climate change during the climate summit in Cancún in Flemish quality newspapers This paper reports on the results of a qualitative content analysis of climate change coverage by two Flemish quality newspapers in the context of the Cancún climate summit. Important similarities as well as differences were found between both newspapers in terms of underlying assumptions regarding international relations.

FRAMING CLIMATE CHANGE

This comparative study investigates news coverage of climate change in the United States and Sweden. The main research question concerns the extent to which news coverage of climate change is influenced by domestic political elite discussion or the scientific consensus surrounding the issue. While there has been a widespread consensus in Sweden that climate change is (partly) caused by human activity and that there is an unquestionable need to take countermeasures, there has been substantial debate about the causes and the necessity of political action in the United States. Based on an extensive content analysis of 1785 articles over a 10-year period, as well as an intensive analysis of news coverage of the Kyoto and Bali summits, results show that media coverage is strikingly similar in these two countries, indicating a weak influence of national political elites on how climate change is framed in news coverage.

News Coverage of Climate Change in Nature News and ScienceNOW during 2007

Climate change has become one of the most favored topics in mass media, political discourses, and scientific discussions during the past decade. By the end of 2007 the scientific journals Science and Nature both demonstrated the urgency of climate change by emphasizing the importance and necessity of appreciating climate change, its severe consequences, and its anthropogenic causes. During that year the two journals' online news services Nature News and ScienceNOW framed climate change to fit particular agendas resulting in markedly different narratives. This article demonstrates that Nature News reported more critically on political decisions, scientific results, and social matters of climate change compared to ScienceNOW. Operating under different institutional constraints ScienceNOW generally took a more cautious line. The evidence drawn from both textual and visual analyses shows that news sections run by scientific journals are very similar to mass media in framing their coverage of science to fit specific agendas.

Climate change as reported in the press of Finland: From screaming headlines to penetrating background noise

News coverage of climate change has increased in the English‐speaking industrialised countries since 2005. The development of news coverage, especially in the United States, has been widely studied. Knowledge of the development and contents of climate debate in other languages than English is sparse. This paper presents the development on the press news coverage on climate change in Finland during the period 1990–2009 and discusses different social, economic and ecological factors influencing the news coverage.

Communicating climate change in regional news media

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate regional variations in the international news coverage of climate change by comparing news reporting in two regional media systems.Design/methodology/approachA case study of how COP14 and a European union (EU) summit on climate change are covered by three Middle Eastern and one Danish newspaper.FindingsThe paper shows significant regional differences in the media coverage of climate change both in terms of quantity (numbers of news articles) and quality (editorial variations, sources, framing, use of graphics). Overall, the study suggests that regional differences in climate change coverage can be traced back to the financial resources, institutional practices and journalistic fields of different regional media systems.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is a pilot project designed to test the analytical significance of regional variations in international media coverage of climate change.Originality/valueWhereas global variations in climate change coverage have mostly been documented by (quantitative) content analysis, less research has been devoted to qualitative differences on how the media approach and frame climate change. Numerical analysis only tells half the story as qualitative differences, such as editorial priorities, or journalistic practices, can either increase or decrease the significance of quantitative variations. By acknowledging the importance of regional differences in international news reporting, this paper emphasises the role and function of regional media systems in conditioning media coverage of climate change.

Media (mis)communication on the science of climate change

Climate change has been widely reported as a scientific and environmental issue. In six months' news coverage of climate change in New Zealand, reporting of basic scientific facts was overwhelmingly accurate. News sources rated over 80% of stories no worse than slightly inaccurate. However, one story in six contained significant misreporting. Some stories overstated the advance of climate change or confused ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect. Scientific sources rated coverage overall worse than their own individual judgments showed it to be. Examination of ways in which stories came about leads to recommendations on how scientists and journalists can work together to better inform the public about climate change.