Climate Change

Climate Change

Introduction

Climate change is one of the most significant challenges to the world today. Everyone contributes to climate change every day, and these every day activities are changing the global climate. Government, industry, pressure groups, citizens and the media are all discussing the problem that climate change poses to the world in what is, for many, a post-industrial era. However, part of this challenge is communicating what climate

change is and encouraging climate-friendly behaviour. This dissertation will explore how well climate change is being communicated and the impact that government, industry, pressure groups and crucially the media are having on climate change communications. Is it helping or is it impeding behaviour? Is it accurate or is it distorted and misleading? Could it be improved in any way? To answer these questions I will explore a number of newspaper articles during a given time and identify the important themes, the narrative structure and the notions about climate change that will enable us to understand the way the climate change story is being told.

My interest in the area rose from an awareness that the level and volume of coverage on climate change had grown enormously in the past three years and as such, my awareness of the subject itself had grown too. After a period of widely reading about and studying war reporting and political conflict in the media, it was my belief that this area had been so extensively and comprehensively covered that a dissertation I could carry out may contribute little or nothing to the sheer quantity and wealth of studies,

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debates and articles that already existed on these topics.

By contrast, it was my

understanding that climate change science and climate change politics in the media was a relatively under researched area and as such, it was my belief that if I undertook an examination of the topic I could contribute something to what small debate existed. What is more, my...