After Copenhagen: climate change and global responsibility in the new media environment

Abstract

The 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen was supposed to be a turning point in global action on climate change. Following such a crucial event, it is important to understand what impact it had on media coverage of the issue and how climate change is now being reported. Climate change is a global issue and the news media should represent it as such, but with the conference deemed a failure, news has reverted to parochial coverage that privileges national frames. Climate change news is subject to traditional news influences such as the competition for coverage and the impact of news values. Using such influences as a starting point, this thesis analyses frames and discourses in a two week sample of climate change coverage taken from two news websites. It argues blogs are an ideal forum for climate change coverage due to their tendency to present analytical reporting that is less restricted by journalistic traditions.