Are Issue-Cycles Culturally Constructed? A Comparison of French and American Coverage of Global Climate Change

Brossard, Dominique; Shanahan, James; McComas, Katherine A.

doi:10.1207/s15327825mcs0703_6

Cited by 288 publications

(284 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…While the idea of scientific uncertainty prevails in US news reporting on climate change (Freudenburg and Muselli 2010), media in several European countries, e.g. Sweden, France (Brossard et al 2004), and Germany (Weingart et al 2000), are reluctant to expose scientific uncertainty (Olausson 2009). In UK newspapers, narratives differ across newspapers and time; also regarding scientific uncertainty (Ambler 2007;Boykoff 2007), thus making the scientific uncertainty frame more problematic .…”

Section: Media Framings Of Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Framings and coverage of climate change in Swedish specialized farming magazines

2012

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Section: Media Framings Of Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Framings and coverage of climate change in Swedish specialized farming magazines

2012

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“…Differences in epistemic markers across cultures and over time were identified by considering news and opinion articles from two US and two Spanish national newspapers for the years 2001 and 2007. Given the distinct ideological viewpoints historically expressed by the US and Spain on climate policy, as well as the relationship between political ideology and framing of climate news (Brossard et al, 2004;Carvalho, 2007;Ereaut & Segnit, 2006), we expected the US newspapers to hedge more than the Spanish newspapers, using grammatical constructs and lexical choices that express uncertainty more negatively and/or ambiguously. The overall density of epistemic markers and the density of epistemic markers with negative tone were indeed higher in the US newspapers during both 2001 and 2007.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This focus on prestige press not only permits closer comparison with previous studies (e.g. Boykoff, 2007;Brossard et al, 2004;Trumbo, 1996), but it also acknowledges the important agenda-setting role these newspapers play in mass media news coverage. Golan (2007), for instance, found a significant correlation between New York Times coverage and evening network television broadcasts, which led him to conclude that the Times sets the agenda for other media outlets.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Whether because of distinct journalistic norms (Schudson, 2001) or distinct ideological attitudes toward climate science (Brossard, Shanahan, & McComas, 2004), the tendency to stress uncertainty and controversy has been largely absent in news reporting in other countries. Gordon, Deines, and Havice (2010) observed that, when the Mexican newspaper Reforma discusses climate change, it focuses on the ecological impacts and consequences for developing communities rather than on scientific disagreement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How Grammatical Choice Shapes Media Representations of Climate (Un)certainty

Bailey¹,

Giangola²,

Boykoff³

2014

Environmental Communication

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Although mass media continue to play a key role in translating scientific uncertainty for public discourse, communicators of climate science are becoming increasingly aware of their own role in shaping scientific messages in the news. As an example of how future media research can provide relevant feedback to climate communicators, the present study examines the ways in which grammatical and word choices represent and construct uncertainty in news reporting about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Qualifying and hedging language and other "epistemic markers" are analyzed in four newspapers during 2001 and 2007: the New York Times and Wall Street Journal from the USA and El País and El Mundo from Spain. Though the US newspapers contained a higher density of epistemic markers and used more ambiguous grammatical constructs of uncertainty than the Spanish newspapers, all four media sources chose similar words when questioning the certainty around climate change. Moreover, the density of epistemic markers in each newspaper either remained the same or increased with time, despite ever-growing scientific agreement that human activities modify global climate. While the US newspapers increasingly adopted IPCC language to describe climate uncertainties, they also exhibited an emerging tendency to construct uncertainty by highlighting differences between IPCC reports or between scientific predictions and observations. The analysis thus helps identify articulations of uncertainty that will shape future media portrayals of climate science across varying cultural and national contexts.

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“…Two modalities may occur at the same time so that we can study co-occurrences (Boholm, 2009). Codes were assigned after reading each article (Brossard et al, 2004;Wakefield and Elliott, 2003), and statistical analyses were performed with the R software (Ihaka and Gentleman, 1996). This study does not consider how messages are constructed or received but is rather focused on their content.…”

Section: A Mixed Approach Combining Quantitative and Qualitative Analmentioning

confidence: 99%

How chemical pollution becomes a social problem. Risk communication and assessment through regional newspapers during the management of PCB pollutions of the Rhône River (France)

Comby

Lay

Piégay

2014

Science of The Total Environment

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The case study of the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) pollutions of the Rhône River (France) offers the possibility of studying criteria for the construction of social problems that result from chemical pollution (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010). We investigated the dynamics of competition that create and define pollution as a social problem and entail its decline. News outlets are crucial for determining how an environmental issue emerges locally or nationally; this study used stakeholders. In terms of management, we described the temporal dynamics of the social problem based on the case study and considered an explanation of the selections. We considered the organization of particular stakeholders who define the social problem from its beginning to end by focusing on their discourses, relationships, decision-making and political choices, and scientific studies. Despite some biases, newspapers are useful for retrospectively evaluating the emergence of a social problem in the public arena by describing it through 2 discourse and then understanding the temporal patterns of information. Despite uncertainties and information flow, decisions are made and science is translated to the public.

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Are Issue-Cycles Culturally Constructed? A Comparison of French and American Coverage of Global Climate Change

Cited by 288 publications

References 20 publications

Framings and coverage of climate change in Swedish specialized farming magazines

Framings and coverage of climate change in Swedish specialized farming magazines

How Grammatical Choice Shapes Media Representations of Climate (Un)certainty

How chemical pollution becomes a social problem. Risk communication and assessment through regional newspapers during the management of PCB pollutions of the Rhône River (France)

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