Media and the Climate Crisis

Kunelius, Risto; Roosvall, Anna

doi:10.2478/njms-2021-0001

Abstract

Recent years have seen another peak in global media attention to climate change. Driven by increasingly dire news about extreme weather, growing demands of systemic adaption and a new wave political activism, the current situation has increasingly been framed as a climate crisis. This introductory essay maps these recent developments and elaborates the conceptual potentials and limitations of the “crisis” frame. It also briefly reviews the state of the art of media research and situates the contributions of the issue into this landscape.

References

Agin, S., & Karlsson, M. (2021). Mapping the field of climate change communication 1993–2018: Geographically biased, theoretically narrow, and methodologically limited. Environmental Communication, 15(4), 431–446. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2021.1902363
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Univeristy of Chicago Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Arendt, H. (1970). On Violence. Allen Lane.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. Harvard University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Benkler, Y., Faris, R., & Hall, R. (2018). Networked propaganda: Manipulation, disinformation and radicalization in American politics. Oxford University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Boykoff, M. (2011). Who speaks for the climate? Making sense of the media reporting of climate change. Cambridge University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Boykoff, M. (2019). Creative (climate) communication: Productive pathways for science, policy and society. Cambridge University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Boykoff, M., Aoyagi, M., Ballantyne, A. G., Benham, A., Chandler, P., Daly, M., Doi, K., Fernández-Reyes, R., Hawley, E., Lyytimäki, J., McAllister, L., McNatt, M., Mervaala, E., Mocatta, G., Nacu-Schmidt, A., Oonk, D., Osborne-Gowey, J., Pearman, O., Petersen, L. K., Simonsen, A. H., & Ytterstad, A. (2021). World newspaper coverage of climate change or global warming, 2004–2021 [dataset]. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.25810/4c3b-b819
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Boykoff, M. T., & Boykoff, J. M. (2004). Balance as bias: Global warming and the US prestige press. Global Environmental Change, 14(2), 125–136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2003.10.001
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Bruns, A. (2018). Are filter bubbles real? Cambridge: Polity.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Brüggemann, M., Lörcher, I., & Walter, S. (2020). Post-normal science communication: Exploring the blurring boundaries of science and journalism. Journal of Science Communication, 19(3), A02. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.19030202
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Brüggemann, M., & Rödder, S. (Eds.). (2020). Global warming in local discourse. How communities around the world make sense of climate change. Cambridge: Open Book Publisher. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0212
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Bødker, H., & Morris, H. (Eds.). (forthcoming). Climate change and journalism: Negotiating rifts of time. Routledge.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cammaerts, B. (2018). The circulation of anti-austerity protest. Palgrave Macmillan.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Carbon Brief. (2021, February 25). Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world. Retrieved June 1, 2021, from https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affects-extreme-weather-around-the-world
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Cook, B. R., & Overpeck T. O. (2019). Relationship between climate scientists and publics as an alternative to information transfer. WIREs Climate Change, 10(2), e570. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.570
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Dahlgren, P. (2021). A critical review of filter bubbles and a comparison with selective exposure. Nordicom Review, 42(1), 15–33. https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0002
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
De Moor, J., Uba, K., Wahlström, M., Wennerhag, M., & de Vydt, M. (Eds.). (2020). Protests for a future II: Composition, mobilization and motives of the participants on fridays for future climate protests on 20–27 September, 2019, in 19 cities around the world. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ASRUW
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Djerf-Pierre, M. (2012). When attention drives attention: Issue dynamics in environmental news reporting over five decades. European Journal of Communication, 27(3), 291–304. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323112450820
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Downs, A. (1972). Up and down with ecology: The “issues-attention” cycle. Public Interest, 28, 38–50.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Dryzek, J., Nordgaard, R., & Scholsberg, D. (2013). Climate-challenged society. Oxford University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Emilsson, K., Johannson, H., & Wennerhag, M. (2020). Frame disputes of frame consensus? “Environment” or “welfare” first amongst climate strike protesters. Sustainability, 12(3), 882. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12030882
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
European Parliament. (2019, November 29). The European Parliament declares climate emergency [press release]. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20191121IPR67110/the-european-parliament-declares-climate-emergency
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Fowler, R. (1991). Language in the news. Routledge.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Fischer, S. R. (2020). Life trajectories of youth committing to climate activism. Environmental Education Research, 22(2), 229–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2015.1007337
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Google. (n.d.). Google books Ngram viewer: What does the Ngram viewer do? https://books.google.com/ngrams/info
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Gosh, A. (2016). The great transformation: Climate change and the unthinkable. University of Chicago Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Han, H., & Ahn, S. W. (2020). Youth mobilization to stop global climate change: Narratives and impact. Sustainability, 12(10), 4127. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104127
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Hanafin, P. (2012) A right to politics? Towards an agonistic cosmopolitics of human rights. In G. Delanty (Ed.), Routledge handbook of cosmopolitanism studies (pp. 326–339). Routledge.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Huo, Y. J., Smith, H. J., Tyler, T. R., & Lind, A. (1996). Superordinate identification, subgroup identification, and justice concerns: Is separatism the problem; is assimilation the answer? Psychological Science, 7(1), 40–45. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00664.x
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
IPCC. (2018a). Global Warming of 1.5 °C [special report]. Intergovernmental panel on climate change. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
IPCC. (2018b). Summary for policymakers of IPCC special report on global warming of 1.5°C approved by governments [press release]. Intergovernmental panel on climate change. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/05/pr_181008_P48_spm_en.pdf
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jasanoff, S. (2003). Science and public reason. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203113820
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Jensen, K. B. (2017). Speaking of the weather: Cross-media communication and climate change. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 23(4), 439–454. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517700379
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Klein, N. (2015). This changes everything. Verso.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Krzyżanowski, M., & Forchtner, B. (2016). Theories and concepts in critical discourse studies: Facing challenges, moving beyond foundations. Discourse & Society, 27(3), 253–261. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926516630900
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kunelius, R. (2020). On the overlap of systemic events: Covid-19, climate, and journalism. Social Media + Society, 1–4. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305120948197
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kunelius, R., Eide, E., Tegelberg, M., & Yagodin, D. (Eds.). (2017a). Media and global climate knowledge: Journalism and the IPCC. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52321-1
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Kunelius, R., Nossek, H., & Eide E. (2017b). Key journalists and the IPCC: Toward reflexive professionalism?. In R. Kunelius, E. Eide, M. Tegelberg, & D. Yagodin (Eds.), Media and global climate knowledge: Journalism and the IPCC (pp. 257–280). https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52321-1
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Latour, B. (2018). Down to earth. Polity Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Latour, B. (2020, March 26). Is this a dress rehearsal? Critical Inquiry. https://critinq.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/is-this-a-dress-rehearsal/
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., & Roser-Renouf, C. (2009, May 20). Global warming's six Americas 2009: An audience segmentation analysis. Yale Project on Climate Change, George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/global-warmings-six-americas-2009/
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Lindgren, S. (2020). Data theory. Polity.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Luntz, F. (2002). The environment: A cleaner, safer, healtheir America. The Luntz Research Companies – Straight Talk. 131–146. http://www.exponentialimprovement.com/cms/uploads/a-cleaner-safer-healthier.pdf
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Marquardt, J. (2020). Fridays for future's disruptive potential: An inconvenient youth between moderate and radical ideas. Frontiers in Communication, 5, Article 48. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00048
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Mitchell, T. (2013). Carbon democracy: Political power in the age of oil. Verso.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Moffitt B. (2016). The global rise of populism. Stanford University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Moser, S. C. (2009). Communicating climate change: History, challenges, process and future directions. Wires Climate Change, 1(1), 31–53. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.11
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Moser, S. C. (2016). Reflections on climate change communication research and practice in the second decade of the 21st century: What more is there to say? Wires Climate Change, 7(3), 345–369. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.403
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. Routledge.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Mouffe, C. (2013). Agonistics: Thinking the world politically. Verso.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Müller, J.-W. (2016). What is populism? University of Pennsylvania Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2018). Cultural backlash: Trump, Brexit, and authoriarian populism. Cambridge University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Olausson, U., & Berglez, P. (2014). Media and climate change: Four long-standing research challenges revisited. Environmental Communication, 8(2), 249–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2014.906483
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Painter, J., & Hassol, J., (2020). Reporting extreme weather events. In D. C. Holmes, & L. M. Richardson (Eds.), Research handbook on communicating climate change (pp. 182–196). Edward Elgar.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Reese, G. (2016). Common human identity and the path to global climate justice. Climatic Change, 134(4), 521–531. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1548-2
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Rogers, R. (2019). Doing digital methods. Sage.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Roosvall, A., & Tegelberg, M. (2018). Media and transnational climate justice: Indigenous activism and climate politics. Peter Lang.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Roosvall, A., & Tegelberg, M. (2020). The importance of the matters, geographies, and mediations of justice. In D. C. Holmes, & L. M. Richardson (Eds.), Research handbook on communicating climate change (pp. 293–304). Edward Elgar.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Schäfer, M. (2021). News media images of climate change: Reviewing the research. In D. C. Holmes, & L. M. Richardson (Eds.), Research handbook on communicating climate change (pp. 143–152). Edward Elgar.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Schäfer, M., & Painter, J. (2020). Climate journalism in a changing media ecosystem: Assessing the production of climate change-related news around the world. WIREs Climate Change, 12(1), e675. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.675
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Schäfer, M., & Schlichting I. (2014). Media representations of climate change: A meta-analysis of the research field. Environmental Communication, 8(2), 142–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2014.914050
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Skillington, T. (2019) Climate change and intergenerational justice. Routledge.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
The Guardian. (2019). The Guardian's environmental pledge 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/16/the-guardians-climate-pledge-2019
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Thunberg, G. [@GretaThunberg]. (n.d.). Tweets [Twitter profile]. Twitter. Retrieved June 8, 2021, from https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Young, I. M. (2013). Responsibility for justice. Oxford University Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article
Wanger-Pacifici, R. (2017). What is an event? University of Chicago Press.
Search in Google Scholar Back to article

Media and the Climate Crisis

Abstract

Paradigm

My account