Unequal Reporting on Climate-Change in News Worldwide

• In Event: Domestic Contestation of Climate Policy: New Research Frontiers

Abstract

Climate change is one of today’s most pressing problems. Yet, most governments are sluggish when it comes to climate action. One reason is that public opinion on climate change is increasingly polarized in most countries. While a predominantly young and well-educated segment of society pushes for far-reaching climate action, others are not ready to go along. One actor that plays a substantial role in this process is the media. Since media reporting can, among others, highlight the unequal consequences of climate change for today’s youth (inter-generational inequality) or rather focus on the unequal consequences of climate policies that, if not compensated, imply an unequal burden for today’s poor (intra-society inequality), different inequalities inherent in climate change (policies) can be either exacerbated or reduced in media reporting. In this paper, we investigate how different types of media portray this issue and whether media framing can exacerbate societal rifts with regard to climate action. We tackle this question relying on a comparative media analysis using multilingual dictionaries based on newspaper articles from 16 countries, 26 newspaper outlets from 2013-2020.

Authors

• Lisa Lechner, University of Innsbruck

• Gabriele S. Spilker, University of Konstanz