II. Una teoría integradora de la argumentación jurídica
3. La justificación en los casos difíciles El requisito de uni-
The media have a key role to play as a gatekeeper, determining which actors or voices get heard within public debates (Reese et al. 1994). The distribution of sources can have strong implications for the overall message conveyed, since various actors will compete to define climate change in a way that suits their agenda. This section examines the distribution of sources and their association with cosmopolitan and communitarian perspectives. Previously, Table 3.1 demonstrated how these two concepts are used within the analysis. To recap briefly, cosmopolitan arguments would focus on the global perspective and
communitarian ones would be written from the local perspective, highlighting national interests.
There has been some research on the sources quoted during climate conferences. Painter (2010) conducted an assessment of sources quoted on the science of climate change at Copenhagen in a brief six-day period in 12 countries. He found that governments and national organisations were quoted in the largest proportion of articles (33 percent), followed by IPCC or UNFCCC (24 percent). Scientists were quoted in only 12 percent of articles, and NGOs in 11 percent (Painter 2010). However, Painter (2010) only included sources which were quoted on the science of climate change, and not on policy or the progress of the negotiations. The exploration of sources here is extended to exploring commentary relating to all of the key climate change issues previously identified. The classification of sources is also different (and more fine-grained) in the analysis that follows: Painter classified sources from UNFCCC/IPCC together, whilst this thesis classified UNFCCC as UN officials/negotiators and IPCC as scientific sources. In addition, Painter classified government sources together, while this study considers the delegations from the countries analysed. Furthermore, whilst he focused on the quotes used in science commentary, this study considers all the actors quoted in the articles on the key climate change issues. This will highlight how such voices might define the problems and solutions to climate change, and allow for a better understanding of the range of perspectives offered in relation to the key issues. In addition, the current analysis is over a longer period of time than Painter’s, which might have implications for the range of sources illuminated considering the fact that the analysis conducted here is during non- conference periods as well.
Table 4.3 provides an overview of the number of articles which quoted either directly or indirectly22 a source from a specific group in the 108 articles for both periods. Overall
sources from the scientific community (27) were quoted most often. This was followed by sources from the UK government or its delegation (26). Delegations from other governments were represented too. These predominantly came in the form of developing
countries (23), although the US government/delegation (15), other developed countries (9), and BASIC countries (9) were also represented. However, there was also substantial sourcing of non-governmental actors, for instance NGOs, UN officials, the business community etc.
These findings are important for a number of reasons. First, the weight of the science community is singularly at odds with Painter’s (2010) findings (although the representation of governments is on a par). Second, our results suggest that the conclusions of theorists emphasising elite or governmental dominance in sourcing need to be revisited and revised (Bennett 1990; Davis 2003; Herman & Chomsky 1988; Livingston & Bennett 2003). All are premised on the dominance of nationally situated, governmental or political elites. Livingston and Bennett (2003: 366) do subtly shift their definition of who should be indexed to included “...political elites whom journalists regard as decisive in the outcomes of the issues...”. This shift perhaps allows for the inclusion of “...supra-governmental organizations (such as the United Nations) and their spokespersons, ministers and leaders.” (373). But this is distinctly at odds with earlier – and later (Bennett, Lawrence, & Livingston 2006) emphasis on national elites, and is implausible in the light of this. Our results, and the weight of non-elite sources therein, seriously problematise the notion of such national governmental (or national political elite) dominance. The weight of foreign sources is also at odds with elite theory more generally (Davis 2003; Evans 1995; Marsh 1995) which tends to focus on relatively homogenous, socially embedded, but nationally situated social groupings (unless the term ‘elite’ is stretched to near meaninglessness).
Our findings are closest to those of Althaus, Edy, Entman and Phalen (1996), who are critical of Bennett and his colleagues’ emphasis on sourcing narrowed down to national elites. They note that foreign governments can get greater representation in coverage than national (in this case American) political elites. They conclude, “Regardless of how the indexing hypothesis is revised, it is clear that the concept of ‘official debate’ must be expanded to include foreign elites” (Althaus et al. 1996: 418). Our results underwrite that conclusion and confirm their prediction that, “In other cases...reporters following professional norms and routines may create a more diverse and oppositional discourse in the news than has arisen amongst US elites.” (Althaus et al. 1996: 418). However, the
assessment of Althaus et al (1996: 418) is still predicated on the notion that this diversity revolves around those actors who have “...a significant say over policy outcomes.”. Here our results suggest that this too is rather narrow, as many of those sourced in our corpus could not be described as having a ‘significant say’. So, the British press, in this instance, could be said to be extending source pluralism in a fuller manner.
Table 4.3 - Source distribution in articles on the key themes by newspaper23 (UK)
Table 4.3 gives a fair indication of the types of sources which are most successful in gaining access to particular titles. But there are differences between the number of articles analysed from each newspaper. As a result of this, it is helpful to examine the source distribution in terms of the proportion of the newspapers’ articles, which quote a certain group. This allows for an assessment of any significant differences in the tendency of each newspaper to give space to particular actors24.
As Figure 4.7 illustrates, there are only a few places where the proportion of stories varies to any significant degree. Here the figures for the Sun need to be viewed with caution in
23 The ‘other’ category includes actors not grouped as any of the above categories, such as former
politicians, religious leaders, police representative, lawyers and architects.
24 Please note that due to the very low number of articles in The Sun, the percentages exaggerate the
comparison to the broadsheets, since the very low number of articles mean numbers in the figure may be an unreliable guide to substantive differences. The Sun may be inclined to reference the government and ‘others’, but the clear picture here is that, overall, its small number of short items use very few sources. As a result of this, The Sun’s readers were exposed to a very limited range of perspectives. The Daily Telegraph (35 percent), on the other hand, does include UK government sources significantly more than does the
Guardian (18 percent). The Daily Telegraph is also more inclined to access the business
community, but less likely to use the public as a source. But for the rest of the categories of sources there is scarcely anything by way of eye-catching differences. This does not appear, on the face of it, to seriously contradict our perception of a lack of dominance by nationally situated government actors. And it does not suggest there is a uniformly applicable structure to the way the ideological position of the respective titles impinged on their choice of sources.
Figure 4.7 - Proportion of articles on the key themes citing each actor (UK)
The ways in which sources are associated with certain issues and not others can be seen in the distribution of the key themes that these sources get quoted on. Figure 4.8 below highlights which actors speak most on particular themes. As we can see the scientific
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60%
Proportion of articles quoting source
Guardian Daily Telegraph The Sun
community – one of the most often cited – is strongly associated with the ‘consequences’ theme, followed by statements on ‘carbon emissions’. It is not surprising that scientists tend to speak on these topics. Nor is it surprising that the other themes, such as ‘financing’ or ‘future generations’, ‘negotiating process’ and ‘lifestyle and sustainability’ are almost completely ignored by scientists too. These are the more political issues, and this fits with the ethos of science, which is supposed to take on the neutral and non-political stance seen in the IPCC’s aim to be policy relevant, but at the same time “...policy-neutral, never policy prescriptive” (IPCC 2011). This would suggest that scientists are being faithful to their remit. These findings are also consistent with previous studies on the role of scientists in the context of climate change. Trumbo (1996) found in his framing analysis that scientists were most associated with what he called the ‘causes’ frame, whilst political and special interests sources were more concerned with the ‘judgment’ frame. In line with this, research has also suggested that as climate change has become increasingly politicised, scientists have lost definitional control of the issue (Carvalho & Burgess 2005; Weingart et al. 2000).The problems and solutions to climate change are now defined by wider range of actors. This further highlights how climate change is no longer merely a scientific issue, but has become a political one, which is discussed at various levels of society.
Figure 4.8 - Actors quoted on a particular theme in British newspapers25 (UK)
Beyond this, what were the most striking features? UK government sources spoke most often about ‘financing’ and were most inclined to do so overall. This reflected Gordon Brown’s rhetoric at the conference which often focused on securing financing for developing countries. However, the UK government was not quoted discussing the ‘consequences’ theme at all. ‘Financing’ was also the theme that developing countries were more inclined than most to emphasise. The large emerging economies that make up the BASIC group, were much more vocal about ‘carbon emissions’, but here were on a par with most other sources. However, one of the most salient features of Figure 4.8, is that ‘future generations’ (most often absent), ‘lifestyles and sustainability’ and ‘negotiating process’ had limited exposure via most actors, save for the developing countries emphasising the last of these. This suggests that the sources do have an important role to play when it comes to the overall message, both in terms of inclusion and exclusion. The various actors at the conference clearly emphasised – or failed to emphasise – different aspects of climate change, thereby playing a role in defining the parameters of the debate.
25 This figure shows the number of times an actor makes a statement on the respective themes. As
such, it is not directly comparable to the overall source distribution, since actors could also make statements which were not associated with any of the themes.
7 9 8 6 9 7 16 5 0 7 1 6 0 0 0 20 6 5 9 2 4 3 14 2 2 4 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 2 0 2 5 1 3 2 2 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 3 2 1 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Sources by key theme
Carbon Emissions Consequences Financing Future Generations Negotiating Process Lifestyle and Sustainability
In order to assess in more detail how the various actors or sources colour the debate, it is worth looking at how they are associated with the various perspectives. We have therefore examined whether there is a difference between how cosmopolitan or communitarian various sources tend to be. As highlighted in the methodology chapter, cosmopolitan arguments would have a global perspective, whilst communitarian arguments would focus on the local and British perspective26. Figure 4.9 shows the association of various actors
with cosmopolitan and communitarian arguments. Overall, the coverage is predominantly cosmopolitan, although there are some variations among the actors. As Figure 4.9 illustrates the actors most strongly associated with cosmopolitan arguments are the developing countries, the scientific community and the NGOs (85 percent and above). The BASIC countries were the most communitarian, with 43 percent, followed closely by business sources (38 percent). Approximately two thirds of the statements by UK government and the UN sources were cosmopolitan. The US government and its delegation, on the other hand, bucked the overall trend, and were most likely to favour communitarian themes.
Figure 4.9 - Distribution of cosmopolitan and communitarian perspectives by sources (UK)27
Overall, the actors varied quite substantially in how cosmopolitan they were in their perspectives, but is noteworthy that NGOs, developing countries as well as the scientific community were proportionately most cosmopolitan. Therefore it is clear that a large presence of these sources in the coverage is more likely to result in a more global perspective.