Presentation of Climate Change in News Media

[Theta]

Hello, my name is Liam, I am a media student in my final year and I am currently writing a dissertation about how Climate change is depicted in news media, both mainstream and on alternative media (blogs and message boards). There is a lot of knowledge about Climate Change on this forum, so I thought that I would open a thread asking about the opinion of this community with regards how Climate Change is shown in the news media along with the reasons for why it is shown in a particular way.

[sidd]

Good luck Liam. I am sure that you have consulted with your university's review board as to soliciting human participation in any research. In the USA this is commonly know as an Institutional Review Board.

That said, I am sure you will find many here with strong opinions.

sidd

[jai mitchell]

mentions of climate change in news media

the spike in 2012 was coincident with hurricane sandy

The drop off in 2009 was the climate gate non-scandal after the run up to a vote on cap and trade.

the trend is quite clear, though I expect in recent years it has gone up quite a bit.

[Neven]

I don't follow the (US) media enough to have a real opinion, but when I look at news coverage wrt Arctic sea ice*, my impression is that it has gone up a lot over the years. Almost every day I receive notifications linking to several news stories on the situation in the Arctic, and not just during summer.

My subjective impression is that climate change news stories are not having much of an impact on policy or people's behaviour. I base this entirely on my personal situation, ie what people I know are doing and how informed they are. It's pretty much SNAFU.


* I've been receiving Google Alerts messages on the combination <Arctic "sea ice"> for many years now.

[gerontocrat]

In the current UK elections, so far there has been little to no coverage of the environment by the media or mention by the main political parties. Even the Green Party is concentrating far more on social justice issues than the environment. The only exception to that has been air pollution in the cities. That was forced to the London-based media's attention by a court case that has forced the Government to publish its air pollution strategy - the response from environmental groups being mainly cries of derision.

Meanwhile the UK is quietly going backwards on renewable energy.

[Theta]

@Jai Thanks for the neat graph, it correlates with a lot of what other researchers point out with regards how news on Climate Change is driven mostly by events (either new reports, conferences or things moving faster than normal, for instance the Arctic Sea Ice melt). With regards Climategate, it is interesting how the interests of conglomerates have influenced the way climate is shown in addition to other reasons (economic problems, lack of education and the fact that climate change does not seem to be as immediate as other problems like those in the economy).

@Neven News on the Arctic seems to have increased, especially with the strange winter in the Arctic and the poor growth during the refreeze period. With regard responses to Climate Change news, perhaps the lack of coverage or the fact that many stories point to the 2050s or 2100s being the point at which certain disasters take place, are why there is a lack of a response in addition to other issues like how certain news stories tend to mess with the debate, for example, how various tabloids responded to a blog post regarding the publishing of a report regarding the hiatus in warming: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/07/federal-scientist-cooked-climate-change-books-ahead-obama-presentation-whistle-blower-charges.html

@Gerontocrat Brexit, pollution and social justice appear to be the biggest and most near term issues at this point in addition to how the country itself is focusing less on the environment.

[TerryM]

Liam
You might want to include a paragraph or two about Wipneus's graphs & how 3? of them have gone viral over the years.


Terry