Media Coverage of International Climate Summits and Negotiations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Wolling ◽  
Dorothee Arlt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Future Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One ◽  
Political Character

The annual climate summits (Conferences of the Parties, or COPs) are major political events that receive considerable media attention. In this way, the topic of climate change returns regularly to both the media and the political agenda. It makes sense, therefore, that communication research regards COPs as occasion to investigating how the media cover climate change. Nevertheless, this strategy has two shortcomings: On the one hand the focus on the conferences might provide a distorted picture—because of the political character of the conferences, the role of political actors and policy-related frames might be overestimated. On the other hand, the political character of the conferences is not always considered appropriately. Most research is mainly interested in the coverage on climate change in the context of the conferences and not in the political discussions taking place at the summits. Future research should address these discussions more intensively, giving more attention especially to the debates in the various online media.

Political Agenda Setting and the Mass Media

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefaan Walgrave ◽  
Peter Van Aelst
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Individual

Recently, the number of studies examining whether media coverage has an effect on the political agenda has been growing strongly. Most studies found that preceding media coverage does exert an effect on the subsequent attention for issues by political actors. These effects are contingent, though, they depend on the type of issue and the type of political actor one is dealing with. Most extant work has drawn on aggregate time-series designs, and the field is as good as fully non-comparative. To further develop our knowledge about how and why the mass media exert influence on the political agenda, three ways forward are suggested. First, we need better theory about why political actors would adopt media issues and start devoting attention to them. The core of such a theory should be the notion of the applicability of information encapsulated in the media coverage to the goals and the task at hand of the political actors. Media information has a number of features that make it very attractive for political actors to use—it is often negative, for instance. Second, we plead for a disaggregation of the level of analysis from the institutional level (e.g., parliament) or the collective actor level (e.g., party) to the individual level (e.g., members of parliament). Since individuals process media information, and since the goals and tasks of individuals that trigger the applicability mechanism are diverse, the best way to move forward is to tackle the agenda setting puzzle at the individual level. This implies surveying individual elites or, even better, implementing experimental designs to individual elite actors. Third, the field is in dire need of comparative work comparing how political actors respond to media coverage across countries or political systems.

Political Agenda Setting

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Maurer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
Political Decision Making

Political agenda setting is the part of agenda-setting research that refers to the influence of the media agenda on the agenda of political actors. More precisely, the central question of political agenda-setting research is whether political actors adopt the issue agenda of the news media in various aspects ranging from communicating about issues that are prominently discussed in the news media to prioritizing issues from the news media agenda in political decision making. Although such effects have been studied under different labels (agenda building, policy agenda setting) for several decades, research in this field has recently increased significantly based on a new theoretical model introducing the term political agenda setting. Studies based on that model usually find effects of media coverage on the attention political actors pay to various issues, but at the same time point to a number of contingent conditions. First, as found in research on public agenda setting, there is an influence of characteristics of news media (e.g., television news vs. print media) and issues (e.g., obtrusive vs. unobtrusive issues). Second, there is an influence of characteristics of the political context (e.g., government vs. oppositional parties) and characteristics of individual politicians (e.g., generalists vs. specialists). Third, the findings of studies on the political agenda-setting effect differ, depending on which aspects of the political agenda are under examination (e.g., social media messages vs. political decision making).

scholarly journals Communication, Negotiation, and Influence at International Climate Change Meetings and Summits

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hartmut Wessler ◽  
Julia Lück ◽  
Antal Wozniak
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Production Environment ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conferences, officially called Conferences of the Parties (COPs), are the main drivers of media attention to climate change around the world. Even more so than the Rio and Rio+20 “Earth Summits” (1992 and 2012) and the meetings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the COPs offer multiple access points for the communicative engagement of all kinds of stakeholders. COPs convene up to 20,000 people in one place for two weeks, including national delegations, civil society and business representatives, scientific organizations, representatives from other international organizations, as well as journalists from around the world. While intergovernmental negotiation under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) constitutes the core of COP business, these multifunctional events also offer arenas for civil society mobilization, economic lobbying, as well as expert communication and knowledge transfer. The media image of the COPs emerges as a product of distinct networks of coproduction constituted by journalists, professional communicators from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and national delegations. Production structures at the COPs are relatively globalized with uniform access rules for journalists from all over the world, a few transnational news agencies dominating distribution of both basic information and news visuals, and dense localized interaction between public relations (PR) professionals and journalists. Photo opportunities created by globally coordinated environmental NGOs meet the selection of journalists much better than the visual strategies pursued by delegation spokespeople. This gives NGOs the upper hand in the visual framing contest, whereas in textual framing NGOs are sidelined and national politicians clearly dominate media coverage. The globalized production environment leads to relatively similar patterns of basic news framing in national media coverage of the COPs that reflect overarching ways of approaching the topic: through a focus on problems and victims; a perspective on civil society demands and solutions; an emphasis on conflict in negotiations; or a focus on the benefits of clean energy production. News narratives, on the other hand, give journalists from different countries more leeway in adapting COP news to national audiences’ presumed interests and preoccupations. Even after the adoption of a new global treaty at COP21 in Paris in 2015 that specifies emission reduction targets for all participating countries, the annual UN Climate Change Conferences are likely to remain in the media spotlight. Future research could look more systematically at the impact of global civil society and media in monitoring the national contributions to climate change mitigation introduced in the Paris Agreement and shoring up even more ambitious commitments needed to reach the goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius as compared to pre-industrial levels.

US Media Coverage of the Cancún Climate Change Conference

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (02) ◽  
pp. 251-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jules Boykoff
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Economic Impacts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
One Year

AbstractMuch was at stake at the 2010 United Nations climate change conference in Cancún, Mexico. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was being challenged by the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States, after these countries reached a tenuous backroom deal one year earlier in Copenhagen. Meanwhile, scientific studies were warning of serious and severe climate change. This article analyzes newspaper articles and television segments from the US media that appeared during the timeframe of the Cancún conference, focusing on two key facets of coverage that continue to be important as negotiations proceed: the economic impacts and opportunities that climate change creates and the role that China plays in negotiations. I also examine which sources were allowed through the news gates and which ones were marginalized. I find that the US media discussed economic opportunities more frequently than economic impacts and that the media treated China in an even-handed way. Established political actors dominated coverage, followed by representatives of nongovernmental organizations and the business community. Meanwhile, grassroots activists and indigenous voices were marginalized.

Mediated representation of Middle Eastern and African migrants in UK and US press in the Wake of Brexit and Trumpism

Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146488492098469
Author(s):  
John-Bell S Okoye
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
The Media ◽  
Migrant Groups

Immigration was a salient feature of Trump and Brexit campaigns in 2016. In view of this, the study assumes that media coverage of Middle Eastern and African (MEA) migrants in international press might deteriorate. Extracting contents from Bloomberg Businessweek, Time and The Economist magazines for the years 2016–2018, the phenomenon was investigated using quantitative content analysis and qualitative textual analysis methods. The findings showed that MEA migrants are positively framed. However, the metaphors and language of constructing the image of these migrant groups belie the positive frames, making references to migrants’ values, cultural backgrounds, faith, and origins in a way that dehumanises and capable of generating hostile attitudes towards them. Of the categories of sources used, politicians’ voices and quotes dominated the coverage with references to the political actors of the 2016 epochal events, while the voices of MEA migrants are underrepresented. What these findings suggest is that not only did the 2016 Brexit and Trump immigration discourses influenced MEA migrants’ portrayals, they also indicated that the media is still manufacturing consent with regards to immigration coverage.

scholarly journals ‘They are just children!’ The Symbol of Childhood in Political Mobilization of Modern Russia

2021 ◽  
pp. 188-197
Author(s):  
Tat'yana Ryabova ◽  
Lyudmila Kleschenko
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One

The first part of the paper describes the theoretical aspects of the issues regarding the politicization of childhood. The authors demonstrate that the representation of childhood in political rhetoric, on the one hand, reflects the ideas about it existing in society, and on the other hand, is its significant forming factor. The second part provides the analysis of the symbol of childhood along with the media coverage of 2017—2019 protest movement in Russia. The third part provides for the study of public opinion on the participation of minors in politics and the use of the symbol of childhood by political actors, based on interviews conducted by the authors. The authors conclude that according to the public opinion there is a need for minors to participate in political life. At the same time, in the course of using the image of childhood by political actors, the majority of informants is aware of its manipulative nature.

The Complex Agenda-Setting Power of Protest: Demonstrations, Media, Parliament, Government, and Legislation in Belgium, 1993-2000

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefaan Walgrave ◽  
Rens Vliegenthart
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Focus Attention ◽  
The Media ◽  
Time Series Analyses ◽  
Pooled Time Series

We conducted pooled time-series analyses to assess how number and size of demonstrations affect the political agenda in Belgium (1993-2000). Taking twenty-five issues into account, this study finds that protest matters for the political agenda setting. This study also advances scholarly understanding of the agenda-setting power of protest by showing that the causal mechanisms of protest impact are complex and contingent. The parliamentary, governmental, and legislative attention for issues is significantly and differently affected by preceding protest activities. The media act as an intermediary variable: media coverage emerges in response to protest and, in turn, affects the political agenda afterwards. Protests on some issues have more effect than on others: in Belgium, new social movements protests are especially effective in causing parliament and government to focus attention on the issue.

scholarly journals Kidnapping Politics in East Asia

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Samuels
Keyword(s):  
Political Support ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Performance ◽  
Captivity Narratives ◽  
Political Class ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Media ◽  
Rights Issues

In this article, I examine two contemporary cases in which the same foreign adversary, North Korea (DPRK), violated the sovereignty of neighboring states. I use a comparison of South Korean and Japanese reactions to political captivity to assess institutional performance in democratic states and ways in which these dynamics are connected to international politics. We see how “captivity narratives” can be differentially constructed and deployed and howpolicycapture can be achieved by determined political actors. Civic groups in both countries worked to mobilize political support, frame the issue for the media, and force policy change. In Japan, politicians were more willing to use the abduction issue for domestic political gain than in Korea, where the political class was determined to prevent human rights issues (including abductions) from interfering with their larger political agenda, including improved relations with the DPRK.

China's Newsmakers: Official Media Coverage and Political Shifts in the Xi Jinping Era

2017 ◽  
Vol 233 ◽  
pp. 111-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Jaros ◽  
Jennifer Pan
Keyword(s):  
Text Analysis ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Xi Jinping ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Automated Text Analysis ◽  
The Media ◽  
Party Dominance

AbstractXi Jinping's rise to power in late 2012 brought immediate political realignments in China, but the extent of these shifts has remained unclear. In this paper, we evaluate whether the perceived changes associated with Xi Jinping's ascent – increased personalization of power, centralization of authority, Party dominance and anti-Western sentiment – were reflected in the content of provincial-level official media. As past research makes clear, media in China have strong signalling functions, and media coverage patterns can reveal which actors are up and down in politics. Applying innovations in automated text analysis to nearly two million newspaper articles published between 2011 and 2014, we identify and tabulate the individuals and organizations appearing in official media coverage in order to help characterize political shifts in the early years of Xi Jinping's leadership. We find substantively mixed and regionally varied trends in the media coverage of political actors, qualifying the prevailing picture of China's “new normal.” Provincial media coverage reflects increases in the personalization and centralization of political authority, but we find a drop in the media profile of Party organizations and see uneven declines in the media profile of foreign actors. More generally, we highlight marked variation across provinces in coverage trends.

Klimaatverandering als journalistieke uitdaging: een literatuurstudie

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard van der Wurff
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
News Values ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Political Challenge ◽  
Media Logic ◽  
Political Framing ◽  
Selection Of

Climate change as a challenge for journalism: a review of the literature Climate change as a challenge for journalism: a review of the literature This literature review synthesizes 35 years of research on climate change reporting in industrialized countries. It focuses on the production and content of climate change news. Starting from the notion of the mediatisation of politics, the study shows that news values and media logic shape the selection of climate change related newsworthy events, while political actors and their logics determine the political framing of the issue. Next, implications for public opinion and mediated public debate are briefly assessed. Overall, the findings suggest that reporting focuses on threats and conflicts, favours national rather than transnational angles, reinforces ideological cleavages, downplays deliberative arguments, and disengages citizens. In conclusion, four lines of research are proposed that can help us better understand the role media might play in engaging citizens in a more deliberative mediated debate on climate change as important ecological and political challenge.

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