scholarly journals How COVID-19 Displaced Climate Change: Mediated Climate Change Activism and Issue Attention in the Swiss Media and Online Sphere

Author(s):  
Adrian Rauchfleisch ◽  
Dario Siegen ◽  
Daniel Vogler
2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110180
Author(s):  
Meghan M. Shea ◽  
James Painter ◽  
Shannon Osaka

While studies have investigated UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meetings as drivers of climate change reporting as well as the geopolitical role of Pacific Islands in these international forums, little research examines the intersection: how media coverage of Pacific Islands and climate change (PICC) may be influenced by, or may influence, UNFCCC meetings. We analyze two decades of reporting on PICC in American, British, and Australian newspapers—looking at both volume and content of coverage—and expand the quantitative results with semi-structured interviews with journalists and Pacific stakeholders. Issue attention on PICC increases and the content changes significantly in the periods around UNFCCC meetings, with shifts from language about vulnerability outside of UNFCCC periods to language about agency and solutions. We explore the implications of these differences in coverage for both agenda setting and the amplification of emotional appeals in UNFCCC contexts.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Lörcher ◽  
Irene Neverla

Issues and their sub-topics in the public agenda follow certain dynamics of attention. This has been studied for “offline” media, but barely for online communication. Furthermore, the enormous spectrum of online communication has not been taken into account. This study investigates whether specific dynamics of attention on issues and sub-topics can be found in different online public arenas. We expect to identify differences across various arenas as a result of their specific stakeholders and constellations of stakeholders, as well as different trigger events. To examine these assumptions, we shed light on the online climate change discourse in Germany by undertaking a quantitative content analysis via manual and automated coding methods of journalistic articles and their reader comments, scientific expert blogs, discussion forums and social media at the time of the release of the 5th IPCC report and COP19, both in 2013 (n = 14.582). Our results show online public <em>arena-specific dynamics</em> of issue attention and sub-topics. In journalistic media, we find more continuous issue attention, compared to a public arena where everyone can communicate. Furthermore, we find <em>event-specific dynamics</em> of issue attention and sub-topics: COP19 received intensive and continuous attention and triggered more variation in the sub-topics than the release of the IPCC report.


2004 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Axel Franzen ◽  
Reto Meyer

ZusammenfassungIn dem Beitrag werden verschiedene Hypothesen zur Erklärung der Unterschiede und der Entwicklung des Umweltbewusstseins im internationalen Vergleich diskutiert und einem empirischen Test unterzogen. Wir diskutieren die Wohlstandshypothese, die These vom postmaterialistischen Wertewandel, die Globalisierungsthese und die Annahmen zum so genannten „Issue-Attention Cycle“. Diese Hypothesen werden mit Hilfe einer Mehrebenenanalyse an den Daten des International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 2000 überprüft. Die Ergebnisse stützen vor allem die Wohlstandshypothese. Es zeigt sich, dass das Umweltbewusstsein sowohl vom individuellen Einkommen als auch vom nationalen Wohlstandsniveau abhängt. Zusätzlich weisen auch postmaterialistische Werthaltungen der Befragten neben weiteren soziodemographischen Merkmalen einen engen Zusammenhang zum Umweltbewusstsein auf. Insgesamt ist das Umweltbewusstsein in den meisten Teilnehmerländern des ISSP 2000 im Vergleich zu 1993 leicht gesunken. Staaten, in denen die Bevölkerung über ein hohes Niveau an Umweltbewusstsein verfügt, weisen darüber hinaus eine höhere Ökoeffizienz hinsichtlich ihrer CO


1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Trumbo

An empirical content analysis of a decade of coverage of climate change in five national newspapers in the US is presented. The analysis is based on the perspective, drawn from social problems theory, that the content of news discourse can be understood in terms of claims-making and framing. Climate change is also discussed in terms of Downs' issue-attention cycle, a five-stage model describing the rise and fall of social attention to important issues. Climate change, as a news story, is described as exhibiting three phases that are related to the sources quoted and the frames presented in the news coverage. Results of the analysis show that scientists tend to be associated with frames emphasizing problems and causes, while politicians and special interests tend to be associated with frames emphasizing judgments and remedies. Results also show how scientists declined as news sources as the issue became increasingly politicized.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo ◽  
John Poe

AbstractHow does the salience of environmental issues influence climate policy adoption in the American states? This article considers how two aspects of public salience, issue problem status and issue attention, work with environmental interest group membership to influence climate policy adoption in the American states. We contribute to the theoretical development of issue salience and offer alternative measures that capture differences in salience across subnational units. We find evidence that states where climate change is perceived to be a problem, and where attention to environmental issues is high, are more likely to adopt relevant policies. Furthermore, states with Republican majorities in either legislative chamber are less likely to adopt climate policies. Our findings have implications for the impact of salience on the policy process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 723-729
Author(s):  
Roslyn Gleadow ◽  
Jim Hanan ◽  
Alan Dorin

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Millington ◽  
Peter M. Cox ◽  
Jonathan R. Moore ◽  
Gabriel Yvon-Durocher

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).


2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Moss ◽  
James Oswald ◽  
David Baines

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