The origins of framing, its usefulness and its drawbacks will be addressed more fully in a subsequent chapter dealing with the methodology of this thesis. It is the intention here to survey and analyse the academic literature that has used framing as a conceptual tool for analysing media coverage of climate change. We have already seen how framing is a frequently used approach in media coverage of climate change research (Fig 2.2 above). Framing is “one of the most fertile areas of current research in journalism and mass communications” generally (Riffe, 2004, p. 2), and media coverage of climate change in particular (Schäfer et al., 2016, p. 9). In frame studies of media coverage of climate change, researchers may use deductive frames (i.e. frames derived from theory and from the existing academic literature), inductive frames (i.e. frames which emerge from the data being analysed), or a mixture of both. Some scholars suggest that all media content can be ascribed to just two deductive frames: episodic and thematic (Iyengar, 1991), while others suggest there are in fact five generic frames into which all news media content falls: the responsibility, conflict, (economic) consequences, human interest and morality frames (Semetko and Valkenburg, 2000). A rare example of research on media coverage of climate change which takes a purely deductive approach (based on Semetko and Valkenburg’s approach) is a 2010 study of Dutch and French media coverage of COPs between 2001 and 2007 which found that the consequences and responsibility
frames were most common, while the conflict and human interest frames were rare (Dirikx and Gelders, 2010).
A wider set of deductive climate change frames, drawn from the literature of science communication and studies of various science-related controversies, such as nuclear power and biotechnology, has been put forward by Matthew Nisbet, who suggests eight frames applicable to climate change: social progress (akin to the opportunity frame in other studies), economic development and competitiveness (the economic frame in other studies), morality and ethics, scientific and technical uncertainty, Pandora’s Box, public accountability and governance, middle way/alternative path and conflict and strategy (Nisbet, 2009). The same author, in collaboration, has also suggested a slightly more concise typology: economic development, morality/ethics, scientific uncertainty, Pandora’s Box, public accountability and conflict/strategy frames (Nisbet and Scheufele, 2009). A more recent study proposes a typology which includes health, security and settled science frames (O’Neill et al., 2015).
Although many studies have examined ways in which media coverage of climate change is framed in different countries at different times, it has been argued that only seven studies explicitly define their analytical approach as “issue framing”. (O’Neill et al., 2015). (These are: Antilla 2005; Doulton & Brown 2009; Olausson 2009; Nisbet 2009; Shehata & Hopmann 2012; Painter 2013; O’Neill 2013). Taking these seven “pure” framing studies as a starting point, then, it is possible to discern commonalities in the frame typologies uncovered.
(i) In her study of newswires, scientific journals, 225 regional and national newspapers in the US, Lisa Antilla “encountered four discernable frames:
valid science; ambiguous cause or effects (indicating a degree of disregard for the gravity of climate change); uncertain science; and controversial science.” (Antilla, 2005, p. 344). The author notes that frames emphasizing debate, controversy and uncertainty were plentiful.
(ii) Doulton and Brown’s 2009 study sits uncomfortably in the category created by O’Neill et al, in that it bases its analysis on Drysek’s discourse analysis approach (Doulton and Brown, 2009, p. 192) and lays no claim to identify or analyse frames. However, the discourses uncovered by the authors align with frames found in other climate change research: optimism, rationalism, disaster, ethics and opportunity. They conclude that UK prestige newspaper coverage of climate change between 1997 and 2007 is dominated by catastrophism and fails adequately to represent “the uncertainty inherent in many aspects of our climate understanding” (Doulton and Brown, 2009, p. 201).
(iii) Ulrika Olausson, in her study of 144 climate change articles in three Swedish newspapers from 2004-2005, found that, although “Collective action against climate change is…a central theme of the Swedish print media reporting on the issue”, adaptation and mitigation frames were seldom mentioned in the same article. (Olausson, 2009, pp. 425–6).
(iv) Shehata and Hopkins’s comparison between US and Swedish coverage of climate change between the Kyoto (1997) and Bali (2007) climate summits showed little difference between coverage in the two countries, and identified three broad frames: the climate change frame (similar to the settled science frame in other studies), the scientific uncertainty frame and the economic consequences frame. The authors also found, in a case study of coverage of
the Bali and Kyoto summits themselves, that the scientific uncertainty frame was “totally absent in news coverage of the two summits” (Shehata and Hopmann, 2012, p. 188).
(v) Matthew Nisbet’s essay on the framing of climate change is one of the most cited works on the media treatment of the issue (468 citations at time of writing) and sets out a convincing rationale for the need to frame scientific information in ways that resonate with one’s audience. The author provides a typology of climate change frames (which will be discussed in detail in a subsequent chapter) and thereby “suggests a deductive set of mental boxes and interpretive storylines that can be used to bring diverse audiences together on common ground, shape personal behavior, or mobilize collective action.” (Nisbet, 2009, p. 22).
(vi) James Painter’s 2013 book includes a cross-national study of six countries (US, UK, India, Australia, France and Norway) for various dates from 2007 to 2012 and identifies four frames: disaster or implicit risk, uncertainty, opportunity, and explicit risk. (Painter, 2013).
(vii) Saffron O’Neill’s study of visual climate change frames shows that two main framings dominated coverage in 13 newspapers across three territories (Australia, UK, US) in 2010: a distancing frame and a contested frame. The contested frame was especially apparent in titles owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, while it was also more present in Australian news titles generally than in UK or American ones. The author speculates that depicting climate change as contested, politicised and distant from everyday life “is unlikely to increase a sense of issue efficacy.” (O’Neill, 2013, p. 18).
Although the methodologies of these framing studies are interesting, their findings are of greater interest to those wishing to establish how media coverage of climate change is framed in different countries at different times and in relation to different aspects of the wider climate change issue. In a recent study US and UK print and broadcast and social media coverage of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, it was found that different frames were used in coverage of the different Working Group reports, that different media types used different frames, and that different media outlets favoured certain frames. Of particular relevance to this research is the finding that the political or ideological contest frame (similar to the conflict/strategy frame in other studies) dominated print media coverage of all Working Group reports (O’Neill, H. T. P. Williams, et al., 2015).
Meanwhile, in Peru, a “solutions” and “effects” frame was dominant, while frames relating to policy and science were limited (Takahashi, 2011). In a frame analysis of the coverage by two US and two UK newspapers of the “Climategate” email hacking controversy, frames of scientific dishonesty, scientific explanation, criminal activity and political advocacy were identified using a cluster analysis which permits the frames to emerge from the data themselves. (Bowe et al., 2012). An analysis of sceptic discourses and US newspaper op eds uncovered three frames: diagnostic, prognostic and motivational. (Hoffman, 2011).
The frames of “new evidence or research”, “scientific background”, “consequences”, “economics”, “domestic politics”, “international relations” and “current weather” were used by Brossard et al (2004) and McComas and Shanahan (1999). While environmentalists and others frame climate change as a looming disaster (Nisbet, 2010), conservative groups who deny the anthropogenic element of climate change counter that climate change may bring benefits and that efforts to mitigate or adapt to climate change
would be counterproductive (McCright & Dunlap 2014). The “apocalyptic frame” (coded as a disaster frame in other studies) may persuade the public there is little they can do to avert the impacts of climate change (Foust & Murphy 2009, p.164), while episodic framing that focuses on people and personalities is more involving (Iyengar and Kinder, 1987b). Although cosmopolitan and communitarian frames in climate change coverage have been examined (Cottle, 2009; Laksa, 2014), thematic framing of climate change in the media is less frequent (Iyengar, 1996).