Patterns of controversy and consensus in German, Canadian, and US online news on climate change

Abstract

Individual action and support for policy to tackle climate change have been linked to perceptions of political and scientific controversy and consensus concerning the issue. Recent media effects research indicates that presentation of agreement or conflict between actors' opinions influences how audiences respond to news about climate change and policy. While some national case studies have investigated portrayals of actors' positions on important questions regarding climate change in the media, they are largely absent from comparative research. This study addresses this gap by analysing portrayals of actor-issue-positions and the emerging patterns of controversy and consensus in German, Canadian, and US coverage. Studying a sample of occurrences of climate change-related issues (N = 902) in-depth, the results show German media present political consensus about the need to limit emissions and societal controversy about the efficacy of specific mitigation measures. Presenting mainly consensus, Canadian media report more on climate change's impact, leaving aside the issue of efficacy. In the US, media emphasise political controversyabout the need to limit emissions and occasionally about climate change's impact on humans. The findings, consistent with other recent publications, can best be explained by journalists selectively indexing of seemingly relevant actor-issue-positions.

Contextualizing climate justice activism: Knowledge, emotions, motivations, and actions among climate strikers in six cities

“…Instead, many said that taking action such as being part of climate strikes made them feel hopeful and comforted that they were doing something and not just letting things happen to them, future generations and the planet as a whole. For example, Morris et al (2019) have suggested using narratives and stories as means of better engaging people in climate change, while Tschötschel et al (2020) have found that reporting about climate change does not (yet) have global unity, but rather that stories are discussed at the national scale.…”

A Controvérsia na Cobertura Mediática de Saúde: A Aplicação Stayaway Covid e as Fontes de Informação

“…With a broader exposure over time (about six months), the news related to privacy, more technical, found more space for context and debate in the printed media. The role of politicians as sources of information, associated with greater media coverage and the impact of controversy (Nisbet et al, 2003;Tschötschel et al, 2020), seems to be more prevalent in radio and television, as they focus more on the present, marked by the political agenda.…”

“…Although this area of research remains underexplored, there appears to be some evidence that exposure to conflicts and controversies in the media is associated with creating public confusion, diminishing trust in health recommendations, and reducing the adoption of prevention behaviours (Nagler et al, 2015). Viewed as the presence of disagreement between the players heard in the news, controversy affects the public perception of specific issues and seems to be directly related to the nature of the actors involved (Tschötschel et al, 2020).…”

Geographies of climate change opinion

“…In particular, communication scholars are foregrounding the influence of social media platforms, digital‐born news media and online commenting functions in sustaining CCS (Adam and Häussler, 2019; Fownes et al., 2018; Gil de Zúñiga. Jung and Venezuela, 2012; Tschötschel et al., 2020; Vraga et al., 2015; Winter et al., 2015). Da Costa and Cukierman (2019), for example, investigate controversies surrounding the anthropogenic nature of climate change on the Portuguese Wikipedia pages.…”