Securitization of media reporting on climate change? A cross-national analysis in nine countries

Abstract

Security implications of climate change have been highlighted by various political and advisory bodies, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in recent years. It is unclear, however, whether such a ‘securitization’ of climate change can also be found beyond institutionalized politics in the public realm, and beyond Western countries. This article addresses these questions by investigating mass media coverage in nine countries over a period of 15 years. Based on an analysis of more than 101,000 newspaper articles, it shows an increasing discussion of climate change in security terms, with diverging trends in the analysed countries. While Western, industrialized countries such as the USA, the UK or Australia display an increasing securitization of climate change, the amount of securitizing language has decreased in India and South Africa. Moreover, different countries refer to different security dimensions – with regard both to the subjects whose security is of concern (national security, human security) and to the type of resources that are discussed in security terms (energy security, water security, food security). While Western countries strongly focus on national security and energy security, emerging economies place greater emphasis on food and, less pronounced, on water security.

Sustainable Development—A Poorly Communicated Concept by Mass Media. Another Challenge for SDGs?

“…We applied a basic text mining technique [11,50] using the Factiva database full-text search tools [51]. The search procedures were as follows: (1) for each sustainability theme and each sustainability concept (search strings used for concepts: Sustainability-"sustainability"; Sustainable-(("sustainable development" not "sustainable development goals") or (atleast2 "sustainable development" and atleast1 "sustainable development goals")); Sustainable development goals-"sustainable development goals"; Millennium development goals-"millennium development goals"), a specific search algorithm was developed allowing for the inclusion of possible variations in spelling, conjunction or misspelling of the term.…”

Climate Change and Violence: Insights from Political Science

“…While not claiming that the field has been securitized as such, another study found a broader definition of securitization to apply to the US [103]. Another analyzing newspaper articles finds territorial securitization to be dominant and on the rise in the Western press [104].…”

Introduction to Special Issue: Disciplinary Perspectives on Climate Change and Conflict

“…At the same time, there is a concern regarding the public discourse on Bclimatic reductionism^-a deterministic, neoMalthusian model of how climatic change is linked to human violence and conflict as well as the potential risks associated with the securitization of climate change [44]. A more systematic consideration of the literature could enhance the policy discussion [45] as well as the representations in the popular media [46]. Additionally, as there is no common section to discuss the relationship between climate and conflict in AR6, there is an additional imperative to ensuring consistency in treatment across the chapters to avoid some of the issues encountered in AR5.…”