Global Coverage of Climate Change Stories About Small Island Developing States: A Worldwide Comparison From 1979 to 2012

• In Event: Environmental Journalism: Coverage, Reader Response, and Mediators

Abstract

This study describes the global media coverage and discourse about Small Island Developing States and climate change from 1979 to 2012. We use a huge worldwide database of mass media content (SWB, compiled by the BBC for the British government,) that contains media material from all countries of the world, translated into English by native speakers. We use computer-assisted mostly automated tools from natural language processing and explore the discursive structure. This unique and scarcely studied resource is used in order to understand how the climate-related problems of SIDS have been reflected in the world’s media over more than three decades. The analysis includes the amount of climate-related coverage on SIDS, specific sub-topics, their relation to individual island states, the prevalence of certain actor types in the coverage and their relation to discursive topics. In addition, we contrast the coverage about SIDS with the coverage of other country groups.

Authors

• Kristina Alexandra Diana John, University of Mannheim

• Hartmut Wessler, U Mannheim

• Scott L. Althaus, U of Illinois