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Media and Global Climate Knowledge pp 109–128Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Disaster, Risk or Opportunity? A Ten-Country Comparison of Themes in Coverage of the IPCC AR5

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Abstract

The structure of the IPCC, which divides its analysis into three Working Groups (Physical Science Base; Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability; and Mitigation) testifies to the role of thematic framing in discussing the evidence about climate change. This chapter looks at the way AR5 coverage applied and mobilized some key thematic frames that were earlier identified as constitutive elements of public discourse. The analysis here moves from issues related to attention and access to questions of interpretation and framing. Results about the dominant themes of reporting deepen the analysis of headlines (Chap. 3) and enable us to look at how some of the IPCC communication effort played out in the actual coverage. Since choosing themes is also an act of choosing a perspective, the chapter also compares how different themes are emphasized in developed and developing countries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although we recognize the distinction is somewhat crude, in most cases we were able to include a left-leaning/liberal/center and a right-leaning/conservative/business newspaper: Brazil O Globo/O Estado de Sao Paulo), Canada (Toronto Star/Globe and Mail), Chile (La Tercera/El Mercurio), France (Le Monde/Le Figaro), Japan (Asahi Shimbun/Yomiuri Shimbun), Norway (Dagsavisen/Aftenposten), South Africa (Cape Times/Business Day) and the UK (Guardian/Telegraph). In Bangladesh and Indonesia, both newspapers are considered to have no clear political leanings.

  2. 2.

    It should be stressed that our coding sheet did not distinguish how such voices or arguments featured. It may have been that in many articles they appeared only to be dismissed. Yet, even in this case, the presence provides a good indicator of how much presence they and/or their arguments have in a national debate.

  3. 3.

    For a more extensive discussion of the presence of climate skepticism in international reporting, see Painter (2011).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University, Oxford, UK

    James Painter

Authors
  1. James Painter
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

    Risto Kunelius

  2. Journalism and Media Studies, Olso & Åkerhus University College, Oslo, Norway

    Elisabeth Eide

  3. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Matthew Tegelberg

  4. School of Communication, Media and Theatre, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

    Dmitry Yagodin

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Painter, J. (2017). Disaster, Risk or Opportunity? A Ten-Country Comparison of Themes in Coverage of the IPCC AR5. In: Kunelius, R., Eide, E., Tegelberg, M., Yagodin, D. (eds) Media and Global Climate Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52321-1_5

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