Cross-national comparison of the presence of climate scepticism in the print media in six countries, 2007–10

Abstract

Previous academic research on climate scepticism has tended to focus more on the way it has been organized, its tactics and its impact on policy outputs than on its prevalence in the media. Most of the literature has centred on the USA, where scepticism first appeared in an organized and politically effective form. This letter contrasts the way climate scepticism in its different forms is manifested in the print media in the USA and five other countries (Brazil, China, France, India and the UK), in order to gain insight into how far the US experience of scepticism is replicated in other countries. It finds that news coverage of scepticism is mostly limited to the USA and the UK; that there is a strong correspondence between the political leaning of a newspaper and its willingness to quote or use uncontested sceptical voices in opinion pieces; and that the type of sceptics who question whether global temperatures are warming are almost exclusively found in the US and UK newspapers. Sceptics who challenge the need for robust action to combat climate change also have a much stronger presence in the media of the same two countries.

A changing climate of skepticism: The factors shaping climate change coverage in the US press

“…Given that tackling climate change is one of the most pressing issues of our time, this paper continues and replicates the work of previous studies (especially Boykoff, 2004 andPainter &Ashe, 2012) and examines the US print media's more recent coverage of climate change. This allows us to develop a long-term perspective from which we then can reconstruct possible shifts and changes in the climate change debate.…”

“…Public opinion polls repeatedly show that climate change is not among people's top concerns (Gallup, 2014a;Scruggs & Benegal, 2012) and 40% of the US American population believes that natural causes explain the rise in the earth's temperature (Gallup, 2014b), though the percentage of those who say they feel informed about the topic has risen. In the mass media coverage the percentage of skeptical voices and arguments are relatively high compared to other countries (Boykoff & Boykoff, 2004;Dispensa & Brulle 2003;Grundmann, 2007;Grundmann & Scott, 2014;Painter & Ashe, 2012;Antilla, 2005). This leads to the (false) impression that the evidence supporting global warming is highly uncertain and helped rendering skeptical views legitimate.…”

Buffers Against Inconvenient Knowledge: Brazilian Newspaper Representations of the Climate-Meat Link

“…Politically, Brazil's daily newspapers are broadly similar, lacking in political diversity. Folha SP is slightly less to the right, or centrist, but this does not translate into perceptible differential climate coverage (Painter & Ashe, 2012 (Broadbent, 2016).…”

Encuadres del cambio climático en Chile: Análisis de discurso en prensa digital

“…El rol central de los medios en el proceso de construcción de las agendas pública y política en torno al cambio climático ha motivado el análisis del discurso medial, especialmente en los países industrializados (Schmidt et al, 2013(Schmidt et al, : 1239, con excepciones como el caso de India ( Jogesh, 2012: 266), Brasil (Painter y Ashe, 2012: 2) y Perú (Takahashi y Meisner, 2013: 340). En la larga historia de la investigación del rol de los medios en la cobertura a temas ambientales, no es sino hasta la década de 1990 cuando la atención se focaliza sobre el cambio climático (Anderson, 2009: 166), entrando en la agenda como un tema fuertemente politizado, en especial en Estados Unidos e Inglaterra (Boykoff y Boykoff, 2004: 125), pasando desde un control discursivo en manos de los científicos climáticos hasta los políticos, luego del "discurso verde" que dio Margaret Thatcher a la Royal Society durante 1988 (Anderson, 2009: 168).…”