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Shifting semantics: A longitudinal study of keywords in climate change reporting Cover

Shifting semantics: A longitudinal study of keywords in climate change reporting

Nordicom Review
Volume 47 (2026): Issue 1 (January 2026)
By:  and    
Open Access
|Mar 2026
Figures & tables

Figures & Tables

Figure 1

Yearly distribution of climate change news

Table 1

Three phases of sampling period

1. (1990–2000)2. (2001–2010)3. (2011–2021)

  • Articles = 2,444

  • Unique word stems = 4,706

  • Total number of words = 1,675,727

  • Greenhouse effect (GE) = 2,987

  • Climate change (CC) = 624

  • Global warming (GW) = 731

  • Articles = 15,824

  • Unique word stems = 14,565

  • Total number of words = 10,516,172

  • Greenhouse effect (GE) = 2,892

  • Climate change (CC) = 15,104

  • Global warming (GW) = 13,584

  • Articles = 28,194

  • Unique word stems = 24,824

  • Total number of words = 24,587,165

  • Greenhouse effect (GE) = 950

  • Climate change (CC) = 37,644

  • Global warming (GW) = 13,163

GEGWCCGEGWCCGEGWCC

  • global warming

  • climate change

  • global

  • man-made

  • acid rain

  • increased

  • neutralize

  • greenhouse effect

  • increase

  • population explosion

  • earth

  • rise

  • runaway

  • Over-population

  • burning

  • perhaps

  • consequence

  • doubtful

  • serious

  • threatening

  • climatic change

  • climate change

  • man-made

  • greenhouse effect

  • heating

  • temperature rise

  • emission

  • increase

  • global

  • water level

  • increase

  • greenhouse effect

  • pollution

  • greenhouse gas

  • cooling

  • climate catastrophe

  • increased

  • runaway

  • noticeable

  • desertification

  • climatic change

  • global warming

  • man-made

  • serious

  • greenhouse effect

  • climate

  • initiative

  • shift

  • desertification

  • warming

  • change

  • follow

  • temperature rise

  • catastrophe

  • flooding

  • increase

  • desertification

  • greenhouse effect

  • destroy

  • erosion

  • man-made

  • warming

  • global warming

  • increased

  • climate change

  • atmosphere

  • feedback mechanism

  • carbon dioxide

  • warming

  • greenhouse gas

  • water vapor

  • nitrous oxide

  • gas

  • climate change

  • carbon dioxide

  • emission

  • methane

  • greenhouse gas

  • effect

  • ozone layer

  • climate change

  • man-made

  • greenhouse effect

  • climate change

  • warming

  • problem

  • greenhouse gas

  • adverse impact

  • global

  • climate problem

  • climate

  • severity

  • superheating

  • emission

  • deny

  • CO2 theory

  • lie

  • consequence

  • destabilizing

  • climate heating

  • global warming

  • climate change

  • climate

  • man-made

  • greenhouse effect

  • global

  • problem

  • consequence

  • seriousness

  • against

  • security issue

  • nature catastrophe

  • environmental problem

  • future

  • trans-border

  • over-population

  • terrorism

  • adverse impact

  • destabilizing

  • world

  • atmosphere

  • warming

  • climate gas

  • greenhouse gas

  • carbon dioxide

  • man-made

  • thermal radiation

  • heating

  • water vapor

  • cloud formation

  • methane

  • CO2 volume

  • greenhouse gas

  • gas [gasart]

  • CO2 containing

  • gas [luftart]

  • emission

  • concentration

  • nitrous oxide

  • Svensmark

  • man-made

  • climate change

  • warming

  • climatic change

  • man-made

  • greenhouse effect

  • temperature rise

  • degree

  • planet

  • emission

  • desertification

  • greenhouse gas

  • over-population

  • global

  • climate crisis

  • weather phenomenon

  • ice melting

  • counterevidence

  • weather event

  • unavoidable

  • global warming

  • man-made

  • problem

  • climate change

  • climate

  • overpopulation

  • climate catastrophe

  • environmental pollution

  • challenge

  • lack of resources

  • consequence

  • environmental damage

  • climate challenges

  • desertification

  • weather conditions

  • influx of refugees

  • migration

  • soil exhaustion

  • oppose

  • population explosion

[i] Comments: The table shows the three phases for the three central keywords and the terms (translated from Danish stemmed words/compound words) most similar to them, ranked by cosine similarity in the vector space. Words can appear multiple times due to spelling variations (e.g., drivhuseffekt vs drivhus-effekt). Terms unique to a keyword and period are highlighted.

Figure 2

Yearly distribution of “climate change”, “global warming”, and “greenhouse effect”

Figure 3

Similarities and differences among top 50 words of each keyword and phase

Comments: Being a mirrored heatmap, the figure shows only the upper triangle.

Figure 4

Sentiment analysis of keywords

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2026-0004 | Journal eISSN: 2001-5119 | Journal ISSN: 1403-1108
Journal RSS Feed
Language: English
Page range: 73 - 93
Published on: Mar 13, 2026
Published by: University of Gothenburg Nordicom
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
climate change,
news reporting,
content analysis,
computational methods
Related subjects:
Social sciences,
Communication science,
Mass communication,
Public and political communication

© 2026 Mikkel Fugl Eskjær, Florian Meier, published by University of Gothenburg Nordicom
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Volume 47 (2026): Issue 1 (January 2026)
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