Spinning climate change: Corporate and NGO public relations strategies in Canada and the United States

Abstract

This article examines the role of PR in the debate about global climate change. Seeking to move beyond a focus on PR as just the handmaiden of corporate power, the article documents the fluid role of professionalized communication in terms of its impact on both corporate and NGO actors and their activities, focusing on communication tactics and the influence of PR consultancies. Drawing from the debates around the transformation of the public sphere, the article argues that the climate change issue illustrates not only structural change but also a wider cultural transformation marked by the emergence of promotionalism as the dominant communicative logic of both powerful and institutionally weaker players. It is argued that although existing political and economic resources provide certain actors with significant advantages, these assets and the structural advantages they tend to accrue cannot alone determine the outcome of struggles over climate change policy and public opinion.

Media attention for climate change around the world: A comparative analysis of newspaper coverage in 27 countries

“…Existing literature on Canada (e.g. Young and Dugas, 2011, p. 15;Greenberg et al, 2011) and especially Australia, the world's largest coal exporter (Howarth and Foxall, 2010, p. 167), also point to this interpretation: the climate change debate in Australia is characterized by a significant politicization, with two camps fiercely competing (Chubb and Bacon, 2010, p. 51f; Bulkeley, 2000, p. 740).…”

Contemporary NGO–Journalist Relations: Reviewing and Evaluating an Emergent Area of Research

“…This leads NGOs to focus on celebrities, conflicts and spectacles as methods for garnering media attention (Dale ; Gaber and Wilson ). Some argue that the adoption of such norms may balance the discursive playing field: For example, Greenberg and his collaborators () suggest that the adoption of media‐savvy strategies by environmental NGOs helps them compete with more powerful government and business actors in the struggle over policy and public opinion. Others are less sanguine.…”

Talk of the Enemy: Adversarial Framing and Climate Change Discourse

“…DSB claims to be 'the world's number one source for accurate, fact-based information regarding Global Warming misinformation campaigns' (DeSmogBlog, 2010). Its organizational ties to the AGW movement network are primarily through its founder Jim Hoggan whose public relations firm James Hoggan & Associates lists forestry, real estate, and pharmaceutical companies among others as its clients (Greenberg et al, 2011). Hoggan is a member of the Board of Directors of the David Suzuki Foundation, a leading Canadian environmental organization whose goals include ensuring 'that Canada is doing its fair share to avoid dangerous climate change' (David Suzuki Foundation, 2010).…”

“…DSB did not view the NRSP as an independent organization but rather as an offshoot of FoS, created because of public image problems faced by FoS when it was implicated in revelations that oil industry funding has been inappropriately channelled to the organization through a trust fund at the University of Calgary (Greenberg et al, 2011). FoS was also a target of DSB at the same time, but received less attention than the NRSP.…”