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Disputed climate science in the media: do countries matter?
1University of Nottingham, UK.
Public Understanding of Science (Bristol, England)
|July 5, 2013
Summary
Newspaper coverage of climate change (CC) and global warming (GW) shows varying attention over time. Advocates for CC action significantly outnumbered sceptics in four developed nations analyzed.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Science
- Media Studies
- Linguistics
Background:
- Climate change discourse is crucial for public understanding and policy.
- Media framing significantly influences public perception of climate change.
- Cross-national comparisons reveal diverse communication strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze climate change and global warming discourses in four developed countries.
- To map the temporal evolution of media attention and identify drivers.
- To examine the connotations of key terms and the visibility of different actors.
Main Methods:
- Large-scale newspaper content analysis.
- Corpus linguistics methodology, including cluster and keyword analysis.
- Discourse analysis of terms like "global warming" and "climate change".
Main Results:
- Attention to climate change discourse peaked and troughed over time, influenced by specific events.
- Analysis revealed distinct national connotations for "global warming" and "climate change."
- Advocates for climate action were consistently more visible than sceptics across all analyzed countries.
Conclusions:
- Media attention to climate change is dynamic and event-driven.
- Linguistic analysis highlights national differences in climate change communication.
- The prominence of advocates suggests a generally supportive media environment for climate action in the analyzed countries.
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