Media Meets Climate

There is no way of not meeting climate change. It reframes our public debates, from shifting global power relations to political participation and individual lifestyle choices. It begs questions about our basic formulas for economics, science and democracy. It is a key theme in thinking about identities and the human condition, making us ask not only “who are we,” but also who the “we” in that question is. Climate change forces states, societies and people to look critically at the political, cultural and material ingredients of our world. For media and journalism, climate change brings up new challenges of coverage. But it also sheds light on the assumptions and distinctions – about facts, representation, and participation – that media and journalism are built on. By meeting climate change, globalizing journalism also meets itself.

Media Meets Climate looks at these crucial 21st century questions through studying global coverage of the United Nations climate change summits. Building on global research from the MediaClimate Network the book offers transnational analyses of how climate change is mediated.

Media Meets Climate looks into the broad structures of global climate coverage. Who or what dominates global news flows? How is the future imagined? It tackles crucial professional issues facing climate journalists. What is the role of journalistic advocacy? How is science represented? Are social media redefining journalism-source relations? It asks questions about the media’s role in global representation and misrepresentation of climate change and actors. How is climate change visualized? What role is played by gender? How are activists framed in the media? How are indigenous people covered?

Content

Preface: Transnational Media Events, Vol II

Introduction
Elisabeth Eide, Risto Kunelius

Part I. Global Discourses

Varieties of Realism: Durban Editorials and the Discursive Landscape of Global Climate Politics
Risto Kunelius

Ups and Downs from Cape to Cairo: The Journalistic Practice of Climate Change in Africa
Ibrahim Saleh

News Flows, Global Journalism and Climate Summits
Hillel Nossek, Risto Kunelius

Saving the Rain Forest – Differing Perspectives: Norway’s Climate and Forest Initiative and Reporting in Three Countries
Elisabeth Eide

Futures of the Implicated and the Bystander: Comparing Futures Imagined in the Coverage of Climate Summits in Bangladesh and Finland
Ville Kumpu, Mofizur Rhaman

Part II. Professional Issues

An Editorial that Shook the World … Global Solidarity vs. Editorial Autonomy
Elisabeth Eide

Applying Advocacy in Climate Change: The Case of Bangladesh
Mofizur Rhaman

Scientific Leaks: Uncertainties and Skepticism in Climate Change Journalism
Katherine Duarte, Dmitry Yagodin

“Really, Fundamentally Wrong”: Media Coverage of the Business Campaign against the Australian Carbon Tax
Philip Chubb

Digital Networks and Shifting Climate News Agendas and Practices
Adrienne Russell, Matthew Tegelberg, Dmitry Yagodin, Ville Kumpu, Mofizur Rhaman

Part III. Actor-relations/Representations

The Evidence of Things Unseen: Visualizing Global Warming
Oliver Hahn, Elisabeth Eide, Zarqa S. Ali

Pessimism of the Intellect and Optimism of the Will: A Gramscian Analysis of Climate Justice in Summit Coverage
Andreas Ytterstad, Adrienne Russell

From COP15 to COP17: Popular Versus Quality Newspapers Comparing Brazil and South Africa: A Question of Social Responsibility?
Kristin Skare Orgeret, Caroline d’Essen

Ignored Voices: The Victims, The Virtuous, The Agents Women and Climate Change Coverage
Billy Sarwono, Zarqa S. Ali, Elisabeth Eide

Misframing the Messenger: Scales of Justice, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Media Coverage of Arctic Indigenous Peoples
Matthew Tegelberg, Anna Roosvall

Attention, Access and Dialogue in the Global Newspaper Sample: Notes on the Dependency, Complexity and Contingency of Climate Summit Journalism
Ville Kumpu, Risto Kunelius

Epilogue. Challenges for Future Journalism
Elisabeth Eide, Risto Kunelius

The Authors