Human interest element in popular climate news content on LRT.lt

• In Event: Aspects of News-Making in the Baltic States

Abstract

Climate change is a topic attracted substantive research in Lithuanian media coverage (Rabitz et al., 2021; Telešienė, 2009). Yet, less is known what characterizes the most popular news on climate change that takes into account their reception. Analysis of the most popular 240 news stories over time on LRT, the national broadcaster, show that the largest proportion of the top stories about climate change continue to focus on the issues of the world, followed by Lithuania and EU (as in Rabitz et al., 2021 findings). Yet, there was no statistically significant difference in reception between them. Top covered categories included IT and science, Lithuania and the World (as per categories assigned by LRT.lt). No differences were found neither in the author, use of images, in the reception. Yet, stories written by individual Lithuanian authors and authors coming from Lithuanian media institutions were preferred. We also found that stories that were more shared on Facebook covered tags that included “people” compared to “other” with no statistical difference between these groups and “climate.” And the coverage topics in the top of the most shared stories, we found that “big picture” topics were included that involved economic impact, politics, celebrities—as use of ethos. The least shared stories included fear-instilling pathos appeal that focuses on negative one as deterrence rhetoric.
Rabitz, F., A. Telešienė, and E. Zolubienė. 2021. “Topic Modelling the News Media Representation of Climate Change.” Environmental Sociology 7 (3): 214–224.
Telešienė, A. (2009). Klimato kaitos diskursas Lietuvoje: reikšmių konstravimas dienraščiuose. Filosofija. Sociologija, 20(4), 250-258

Short Bio

Asta Zelenkauskaite is associate professor at Drexel University who analyzes the intersection between mass media and social media. This project is part of the project INFODEMIJA where co-authors are part of the project. (Mykolas Romeris University)
G. Gulevičiūtė is a digital marketing Lecturer. (Mykolas Romeris University)
A. Skaržauskienė's is a professor of communication; her research topics include the formation of collective intelligence in the digital environment, community involvement in decision-making technology-based cooperation. (Mykolas Romeris University)
M. Mačiuliene, is a media scholar specializing in qualitative interviews, digital content analysis, netnography, network analysis, etc. innovative content analysis methods. (Mykolas Romeris University)
Dr. A.Diržytė is a professor of psychology who specializes in user profiling analysis. (Mykolas Romeris University)

Author

• Asta Zelenkauskaitė, MRU (Lithuania); Vilnius Tech (Lithuania); Drexel University (USA)