The media play a central role in informing the public about what happens in the world, particularly in those areas in which audiences do not possess direct knowledge or experience. This article examines the impact the media has in the construction of public belief and attitudes and its relationship to social change. Drawing on findings from a range of empirical studies, we look at the impact of media coverage in areas such as disability, climate change and economic development. Findings across these areas show the way in which the media shape public debate in terms of setting agendas and focusing public interest on particular subjects. For example, in our work on disability we showed the relationship between negative media coverage of people on disability benefit and a hardening of attitudes towards them. Further, we found that the media also severely limit the information with which audiences understand these issues and that alternative solutions to political problems are effectively removed from public debate. We found other evidence of the way in which media coverage can operate to limit understanding of possibilities of social change. In our study of news reporting of climate change, we traced the way that the media have constructed uncertainty around the issue and how this has led to disengagement in relation to possible changes in personal behaviours. Finally, we discuss the implications for communications and policy and how both the traditional and new media might help in the development of better informed public debate.

The livestock sector is a major driver of climate change, accounting for 14.5% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Population growth and rising prosperity are expected to see global consumption of meat rise by 76% by mid-century, a rate which is associated with significant social and environmental costs. There is therefore a compelling case for public measures to promote dietary shifts towards a more sustainable model, but little action has been taken at the international or national level. This article reports on an international study, with research conducted across the UK, US, China and Brazil, which examines the role the media might play in driving social change in this area. The study focused specifically on the negotiation of new information around meat consumption and climate change and its impacts on existing attitudes and behaviours. Findings indicate that perceptions and beliefs on climate change are culturally specifictending to reflect national political and social priorities -but are contextualised within individually constructed media environments. Key determining factors include assessments of trust and credibility in regard to scientists and other experts, perceptions of the role of government and questions of individual versus collective responsibility. These shape the parameters within which arguments about the impact of meat consumption upon climate change are received, and these responses interact with cultural and structural barriers and opportunities to shape the likelihood of behaviour change.

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This article examines the role of news media on climate change and sustainable energy in the shaping of audience opinions and beliefs and the possible relation of these to behaviours. It reports on a series of studies conducted between 2011-2014 which develop existing approaches to audience reception analyses by using innovative methodologies which focus specifically on the negotiation of new information in response to existing beliefs, perceptions and behavioural patterns -both in the short and long term. Audience groups are introduced to new information to which the range of responses are examined. This approach allows for an exploration of the interplay of socio-political and personal factors as well as the identification of the potential informational triggers for change. The findings suggest that media accounts are likely to have a shaping role in relation to behaviours under a range of specific and coinciding conditions.

This article uses a circuit of communication framework to examine the role of the media in shaping public debate of the financial system and the way in which this impacts on audience response and related societal impacts. It is founded in debates about neoliberalism and financialisation which highlight the shift of power from, or through, the state to large corporations. One result of this structural shift is an increasingly integrated political, media and corporate culture which promotes the interests of the 'market' in public and private lives, and operates to limit the information available to audiences. Alternatives to economic policies and solutions to problems are marginalised in public debate, as illustrated by media coverage of the financial crisis. This limiting of alternatives is decisively implicated in the development of sympathetic attitudes to 'preferred' perspectives and related policy moves, which constrain the potential for effective resistance at the level of collective and individual responses.