ROLE OF NEWS PORTRAYAL ON CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUE

G.BASKAR*, V.T.DEEPTHA*

Assistant Professor, School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and

Technology, SRM University, Kattankulathur 603 203, Chennai, India.

baskarg69@yahoo.com, vtdeeptha@gmail.com

keywords : web media, news articles, content analysis, climate change, global
warming, salience, image, scope, linkage, participant, solution.

Abstract Communication media is becoming a powerful tool in creating

awareness about any issue among society in recent days. News portrayal in web
media plays a major role among professional community as well as society in general.
Content analysis technique was implemented to investigate the characterization of
climate change issue during the period of January 2004 through October 2008 by the
news portrayal in the popular search engines like google, altavista and lycos. A total
of 69 news articles related to climate change issue were collected and analyzed. Out
of them, only 38 articles discuss the core climate change issue. Data were analyzed
with regard to issue attributes like salience, image, scope, linkage, participant, and
solution. It is found that media attention to the climate change issue increase over
time gradually from 2 articles to 13 articles. 94% of news articles view the climate
change issue as harmful problem while remaining 6% indicate mixed views. It is also
observed from 2/3 of total news articles that climate change issue is often discussed as
global issue. And the climate change issue is mostly linked to government policy (8
articles), biodiversity (6 articles), and environment (4 articles). The study clearly
indicted that most of the scientific information on climate change issue primarily from
academic institutions (14 articles), then from government agencies (7 articles), United
Nations (6 articles) and international agency (5 articles).The findings indicate that
emphasis on climate change issue solutions is more placed on mitigation (53%) rather
than adaptation (5%).

1. INTRODUCTION
The news media significantly influence the public attitude about various social
and environmental issues. They examined the climate change issue from various
perspectives. This paper attempts a brief review of news coverage on climate change
issue in web media.

2. NEWS PORTRAYAL AND PUBLIC ISSUE

The role of news portrayal in web media in reporting public issues has been
widely recognized by public, scientists, and researchers all over the world. The news
media have the ability to portray an issue in different ways. They influence the public
and policy makers to think about the issue. They can also affect the perception of
what might be done regarding the issue.
Scholars in various fields have conducted numerous studies on news coverage
of a public issue. These studies contribute greatly to our understanding of news media
coverage of a public issue.
3. CONTENT ANALYSIS
The unit of analysis of this study is the news article. Online search engines
google, yahoo, altavista, and lycos were used to collect relevant news articles on
climate change published online in their news archieves. The time span of this study
covers a 4years 10 months period from January 2004 through October 2008. Three
key terms climate change, global warming and greenhouse gases were used to
capture the majority of the news articles published on climate change issue.

4. ISSUE ATTRIBUTES AND DISCUSSION

Any public issue portrayed as news in mass media must have the attributes
salience, image, scope, linkage, participant, and solution.

4.1 Issue Salience

The salience of issue is measured by annual number of published articles
about the issue. Various news media agenda setting studies used this method of
measuring issue salience.
Fig.1. shows the characteristics with regard to the salience of the climate
change in the news portrayal in web media. In 2004, only 2 climate change articles
appeared, then increased to 7 articles in the year 2005, the deceased to 5 articles in
2006, then show increased gradually 11 articles and 13 articles in the year 2007 and
2008 respectively. The overall salience of the climate change issue increased over
time from 2 articles in the year 2004 to 13 articles in the year 2006 despite fall in the
year 2006.

FIGURE.1. ANNUAL NUMBER OF ARTICLES ON CLIMATE CHANGE

4.2 Issue Image

The fundamental impression of an issue is the issue image. It has a powerful
influence on shaping public understanding of the issue. Articles clearly indicating the
consequences of climate change as environmental disaster, health risk, loss of
life, threat to infrastructure, land degradation, severe storm, severe storm were
coded as harmful. Articles indicating that climate change is not dangerous, by any
way as mentioned in harmful indicators, were coded as not harmful. Articles
representing both positive and negative views of the climate change were coded as
mixed.
 Fig.2. exhibits that majority of the news portrayal in the web media real or
possible negative consequences for climate change. It communicated a harmful image
for climate change. More specifically, among 38 articles 94% (36 articles) portrayed
climate change as a harmful issue, 3% (1 article) was mixed, and 3% (1 article)
viewed the issue as not harmful.

FIGURE.2. NUMBER OF ARTICLES ON ISSUE IMAGE

Fig.3. represents the change in the image of climate change issue over time.
The general trend was that the percentage of non-harmful declined gradually over the
study period except in the year 2006.

FIGURE.3. CHANGING ISSUE IMAGE OVER TIME

Overall, the climate change issue was predominantly painted as a negative and
harmful problem.

4.3 Issue Scope

Issue scope identifies the geographical area affected by the issue. The issue
scope variable contains six categories: local, state, multi state, national, Asia,
and global.
 Fig.4. depicts a simple count of articles by the categories of issue scope. The
majority of the news articles (23 articles) in the web media portrayed climate change
as an international global issue (61%) . The next majority falls under the category of
national scope because the portrayal of web media news articles prefers the
geographical location of news reach.

FIGURE.4. NUMBER OF ARTICLES ON ISSUE SCOPE

4.4 Issue Linkage

Issue linkage describes the association of an issue with other issues. For the
climate change issue, it can be directly linked to a large array of other public issues.
This issue linkage category included 14 other public issues that climate change might
be linked to policy, biodiversity, environment, research and development,
agriculture, housing, economy, education, health, society, international
cooperation, transportation, energy and defense.
Fig.5. summarizes the linkage of climate change issue with other public issues.
policy has the strongest linkage (8 articles) followed by biodiversity (6 articles)
and environment (4 articles). research and development, agriculture, housing,
and economy show moderate linkages by means of 3 articles each. education,
health, society, and international cooperation also exhibit some association with
climate change by 2 articles in each category but transportation, energy and
defense were almost never linked to climate change.

4.5 Issue Participant

The essence of policy conflict over an issue is the scope of participation. This
paper attempts to identity various interest groups and source of information pertaining
to climate change issue. By examining each article, the participants identified are
academic, government, UN, international agency, NGO, WWF, IPCC, and
SAARC.
Fig.6. presents the overall coverage of various interest groups as measured by
the number of articles mentioning them. The primary source of information on
climate change issue was academic(37%), followed by government(18%), then by
UN (16%), and international agencies (13%). The other interest groups say NGO,
WWF, IPCC, and SAARC also associated with climate change issue awareness.
 FIGURE.5. NUMBER OF ARTICLES LINKING OTHER PUBLIC ISSUES

FIGURE.6. SOURCE OF INFORMATION

4.6 Issue Solution

The news portrayal in web media not only discusses the sites of an issue but
also proposes solutions to problems. Proposed solution strategy is a key dimension of
issue attributes. There are two key solutions proposed in the news articles for climate
change issue mitigation and adaptation. The solution strategies were coded as
mitigation, adaptation, both mitigation and adaptation, and no solution.
Fig.7. indicated proposed solutions in news articles. Among articles
mentioning solutions, mitigation (53%) was the dominant solution strategy proposed
followed by the solution both mitigation and adaptation (37%). Both no solution
and adaptation as a solution strategy received little attention (5%) each.
 FIGURE.7. PROPOSED SOLUTIONS IN NEWS ARTICLES

5. CONCLUSION
The overall salience of climate change issue increased 7 fold over the time
period from the year 2004 to October 2008 examined.
The image of climate change issue was overwhelmingly an image of harmful
problem as characterized by 94% of news articles studied.
The majority of news articles, 23 out of 38, portrayed the climate change issue
as one with international global scope.
The strongest issue linkage was between climate change and government
policy among 11 other public issues as narrated by of news articles.
The academic community was the frequently mentioned interest group
contributed as source of information on climate change issue as appeared in
one-third of news articles.
The mitigation was identified as solution for climate change issue by 53% of
the news articles verified.

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