Rebel with a cause: the framing of climate change and intergenerational justice in the German press treatment of the Fridays for Future protests

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-47
Author(s):  
Lena von Zabern ◽  
Christopher D Tulloch

This study investigates the representation of the Fridays for Future strikes in the German online newspapers Bild.de, Zeit Online and FAZ.net. Through a qualitative and quantitative content analysis over the time period August 2018 to March 2019, eight frames have been identified. Whereas Zeit Online shows a framing towards intergenerational justice, the coverage of FAZ.net and Bild.de strongly adheres to the protest paradigm. The majority of all articles guarantees protesters a voice, but this voice is often reduced to apolitical testimonies and the protesters’ self-agency is undermined through disparagement. German media coverage thus tends to reproduce existing power structures by marginalizing and depoliticizing the political agenda of a system critical protest. Although this framing feeds into the shift of the climate change discourse towards adaptation, the study shows that the idea of climate change as an issue of intergenerational justice and children’s rights has become part of the media’s agenda.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 758-807
Author(s):  
Alexander Godulla ◽  
Daniel Seibert ◽  
Rosanna Planer

Initially founded in 1955 as a platform for Dutch photojournalists to increase international exposure, the World Press Photo competition has grown into the most prestigious contest of photojournalism worldwide, making it an important arena for journalism research. Using qualitative and quantitative content analyses, this study examines all photos shown in the competitions from 1960 to 2020 (N = 11,789) considering the origin of jury members (N = 686), participants (N = 132,800), placements (N = 2347) and the Human Development Index (HDI) of the countries. The topics displayed on the photos, their degree of negativity, and potential power structures in the photos are analysed over time both in terms of continental and HDI-related differences. Significant results show that Africa, Asia, and South America are more frequently depicted by the topic conflict and characterised by negative images than continents with industrialised nations (Australia/Oceania, Europe, North America). Participating European countries have a significantly higher average number of jury members, participants, and placements than participating countries from Africa, Asia, and South America, which seems to account for a dominant Eurocentric view. Implications and critical discussions are summarized in three interim conclusions at the end of this extended paper.


Author(s):  
Jens Wolling ◽  
Dorothee Arlt

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.


2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 498-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Schmid-Petri ◽  
Silke Adam ◽  
Ivo Schmucki ◽  
Thomas Häussler

Skepticism toward climate change has a long tradition in the United States. We focus on mass media as the conveyors of the image of climate change and ask: Is climate change skepticism still a characteristic of US print media coverage? If so, to what degree and in what form? And which factors might pave the way for skeptics entering mass media debates? We conducted a quantitative content analysis of US print media during one year (1 June 2012 to 31 May 2013). Our results show that the debate has changed: fundamental forms of climate change skepticism (such as denial of anthropogenic causes) have been abandoned in the coverage, being replaced by more subtle forms (such as the goal to avoid binding regulations). We find no evidence for the norm of journalistic balance, nor do our data support the idea that it is the conservative press that boosts skepticism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (s3) ◽  
pp. 71-87
Author(s):  
Tine Ustad Figenschou ◽  
Elisabeth Eide ◽  
Ruth Einervoll Nilsen

Abstract Recent studies argue that the contemporary working class has largely disappeared from the news media. Another strand of literature demonstrates that the traditional labour beat has lost newsroom prestige due to changes in the established news media and crisis in the labour movement. Analysing how traditional working-class sectors are covered in mainstream newspapers and trade union magazines over time, we conduct a systematic, quantitative content analysis of 18 months of coverage from 1996–2017. We find a steady decline in media coverage throughout the period, indicating that the labour beat as an established specialisation is disappearing. Studying topical emphasis and source practices demonstrates marked differences between the newspapers and the trade union magazines: The mainstream newspapers are elite- and conflict-oriented (although not hostile in their coverage), while the trade union magazines largely reflect power structures and the interests of the labour movement. In the discussion, the main findings from the content analysis are explained by practitioners, to contextualise and provide insider perspectives on the findings.


Author(s):  
Anita Rønne

Increasing focus on sustainable societies and ‘smart cities’ due to emphasis on mitigation of climate change is simultaneous with ‘smart regulation’ reaching the forefront of the political agenda. Consequently, the energy sector and its regulation are undergoing significant innovation and change. Energy innovations include transition from fossil fuels to more renewable energy sources and application of new computer technology, interactively matching production with consumer demand. Smart cities are growing and projects are being initiated for development of urban areas and energy systems. Analysis from ‘Smart Cities Accelerator’, developed under the EU Interreg funding programme that includes Climate-KIC,——provides background for the focus on a smart energy system. Analysis ensures the energy supply systems support the integration of renewables with the need for new technologies and investments. ‘Smart’ is trendy, but when becoming ‘smart’ leads to motivation that is an important step towards mitigating climate change.


2021 ◽  
pp. 004728162110078
Author(s):  
Shanna Cameron ◽  
Alexandra Russell ◽  
Luke Brake ◽  
Katherine Fredlund ◽  
Angela Morris

This article engages with recent discussions in the field of technical communication that call for climate change research that moves beyond the believer/denier dichotomy. For this study, our research team coded 900 tweets about climate change and global warming for different emotions in order to understand how Twitter users rely on affect rhetorically. Our findings use quantitative content analysis to challenge current assumptions about writing and affect on social media, and our results indicate a number of arenas for future research on affect, global warming, and rhetoric.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 413
Author(s):  
Maximilian Kardung ◽  
Kutay Cingiz ◽  
Ortwin Costenoble ◽  
Roel Delahaye ◽  
Wim Heijman ◽  
...  

The EU’s 2018 Bioeconomy Strategy Update and the European Green Deal recently confirmed that the bioeconomy is high on the political agenda in Europe. Here, we propose a conceptual analysis framework for quantifying and analyzing the development of the EU bioeconomy. The bioeconomy has several related concepts (e.g., bio-based economy, green economy, and circular economy) and there are clear synergies between these concepts, especially between the bioeconomy and circular economy concepts. Analyzing the driving factors provides important information for monitoring activities. We first derive the scope of the bioeconomy framework in terms of bioeconomy sectors and products to be involved, the needed geographical coverage and resolution, and time period. Furthermore, we outline a set of indicators linked to the objectives of the EU’s bioeconomy strategy. In our framework, measuring developments will, in particular, focus on the bio-based sectors within the bioeconomy as biomass and food production is already monitored. The selected indicators commit to the EU Bioeconomy Strategy objectives and conform with findings from previous studies and stakeholder consultation. Additionally, several new indicators have been suggested and they are related to measuring the impact of changes in supply, demand drivers, resource availability, and policies on sustainability goals.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 797-811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brianne Suldovsky ◽  
Asheley Landrum ◽  
Natalie Jomini Stroud

In an era where expertise is increasingly critiqued, this study draws from the research on expertise and scientist stereotyping to explore who the public considers to be a scientist in the context of media coverage about climate change and genetically modified organisms. Using survey data from the United States, we find that political ideology and science knowledge affect who the US public believes is a scientist in these domains. Our results suggest important differences in the role of science media attention and science media selection in the publics “scientist” labeling. In addition, we replicate previous work and find that compared to other people who work in science, those with PhDs in Biology and Chemistry are most commonly seen as scientists.


Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 768
Author(s):  
Jerónimo Vázquez-Ramírez ◽  
Susanna E. Venn

The early life-history stages of plants, such as germination and seedling establishment, depend on favorable environmental conditions. Changes in the environment at high altitude and high latitude regions, as a consequence of climate change, will significantly affect these life stages and may have profound effects on species recruitment and survival. Here, we synthesize the current knowledge of climate change effects on treeline, tundra, and alpine plants’ early life-history stages. We systematically searched the available literature on this subject up until February 2020 and recovered 835 potential articles that matched our search terms. From these, we found 39 studies that matched our selection criteria. We characterized the studies within our review and performed a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the extracted meta-data regarding the climatic effects likely to change in these regions, including projected warming, early snowmelt, changes in precipitation, nutrient availability and their effects on seed maturation, seed dormancy, germination, seedling emergence and seedling establishment. Although the studies showed high variability in their methods and studied species, the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the extracted data allowed us to detect existing patterns and knowledge gaps. For example, warming temperatures seemed to favor all studied life stages except seedling establishment, a decrease in precipitation had a strong negative effect on seed stages and, surprisingly, early snowmelt had a neutral effect on seed dormancy and germination but a positive effect on seedling establishment. For some of the studied life stages, data within the literature were too limited to identify a precise effect. There is still a need for investigations that increase our understanding of the climate change impacts on high altitude and high latitude plants’ reproductive processes, as this is crucial for plant conservation and evidence-based management of these environments. Finally, we make recommendations for further research based on the identified knowledge gaps.


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.


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