Negotiating climate change: A frame analysis of COP21 in British, American, and Chinese news media

Abstract

Climate negotiations have increasingly resonated with global governance and world power relations. However, media studies of climate change have paid relatively less attention to media frames of the problem solving. This study addresses this issue by examining the media coverage of COP21 from three countries that have considerable influence on climate politics: the United Kingdom, the United States, and China. By applying an inductive frame analysis, the study identified 10 media frames embedded in the discussions on climate negotiations. A deductive analysis further assessed the prevalence of these frames. The findings suggest that the frames were significantly influenced by the values of the established and emerging powers in the international policy area. The British and American media upheld the underlying norms that have long underpinned the existing Western-led order, while Chinese media coverage manifested a rising power in need of world recognition.

How did the top two greenhouse gas emitters depict climate change? A comparative analysis of the Chinese and US media

“…Scholars have repeatedly argued that skewed media coverage of climate change can lead to the dilution of scientific consensus and distorted translation of scientific findings (Shehata and Hopmann, 2012). The process of filtering and reshaping largely hinges upon the distinctive characteristics of the media systems in different countries (Han et al, 2017;Pan et al, 2019). Directed by prior research, this study examined (1) the issue saliencies placed and (2) the frame(s) employed by the US and Chinese media in their climate change coverage within a 4-year span.…”

“…Maynard and Shackley, 2018), having divergent political stances and normative values (e.g. Pan et al, 2019), have utilized distinctive frames to depict the same issue resulting in different media effects.…”

“…However, it bears mentioning that in many cases, framing effects may be influenced by context, such as the media's partisan affiliation, ideological stances, the interests of stakeholders, sponsors, and the national systems in which the media are located (Entman, 2010;Pan et al, 2019;Reese, 2001). In a nutshell, media are the final renderer of frames while the selection and determination of frames might be driven by social actors other than media practitioners.…”

Exploring the dynamics in the environmental discourse: the longitudinal interaction among public opinion, presidential opinion, media coverage, policymaking in 3 decades and an integrated model of media effects

“…Searched with keywords "environment," "environmental," "environmentalist," or "environmentalism," 531 news articles (keywords in headlines) were collected from the A Sections of The New York Times and the Washington Post, oft-used as representatives of national newspapers on many issues (Chang 1992), including environment-related issues (Pan, Opgenhaffen, and Van Gorp, 2019), through LexisNexis; 476 documents (keywords in all text) were selected from the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, an oft-used source of presidential opinion (Domke, Graham, Coe, John, and Coopman 2006;Wanta and Foote 1994) through the HeinOnline database. With the keyword "environment," 327 summaries of evening news stories from ABC, CBS, and NBC were found from the Vanderbilt Television News Archive (Boykoff 2008;Wanta and Foote 1994).…”

The green battle in the media: A framing analysis of environmental press coverage

“…Environmental communication studies have paid special attention to discourse and how it is framed (Hansen, 2011). The one environmental area that has enjoyed the most attention in this sense is climate change (see, for instance, Carvalho, 2008;Maibach, Nisbet, Baldwin, Akerlof & Diao, 2010;Nisbet, 2009Nisbet, , 2010or Pan, Opgenhaffe & Van Gorp, 2019). In Spain, despite the fact that most framing studies in the field of communication have been related to social or political communication matters (see, for instance, Cheng, Igartua, Palacions, Acosta & Palito, 2010;or Valera Ordaz & López García, 2014), we can also find some works focusing on environmental issues such as environmental disasters (Vicente-Mariño, 2010), climate change (Lopera & Moreno, 2014), natural spaces (Mateu & Domínguez, 2017) or risk communication (Castelló, 2010).…”