Research on the Transformations of Journalism and Public Communication

Abstract

Future scenarios of a changing climate are not only an integral part of climate research, but they are also part of media coverage on climate change. Such reporting affects how people imagine the future to be, as well as their current and intended behaviors. Hence, this article made use of a quantitative, manual content analysis with qualitative and automated approaches for sample construction, to analyze the framing of climate futures in journalistic media across four countries (Germany, India, South Africa, and the United States; n = 1 010). Four frames were identified: “Solutions to climatic and social consequences”, “Distant threats to humanity”, “Economic opportunities”, and “Distant threats to ecosystems” – these frames describe different climate futures, with only a few differences between Global North and Global South countries. Implications for climate change communication will be discussed.

Guenther, L. /  Meyer, H. /  Kleinen-von Königslöw, K. / Brüggemann, M. (2023). A Distant Threat? The Framing of Climate Futures Across Four Countries. Environmental Communication, 17(7), 775–793. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2023.2253500.

Abstract

The threats posed to society by climate change often fail to become priorities for voters and policymakers. Nevertheless, it has been shown that merely paying online attention to climate change can increase the perceived severity of the associated risks and thus encourage climate action. Therefore, we focus on public discourse on Twitter to explore the interplay of “triggers” and discursive features that stimulate attention to climate change. We collected data from 2017 to 2021, identified each year’s top five “peak” events of climate attention, and applied manual content (N = 2,500) and automated network analyses (N = ~17,000,000). The results show that while specific events and actors may not trigger and maintain attention permanently, there are discursive features (types of domains, discourses, users, and networks) that continuously shape attention to climate change. Debates are highly politicized and often call for action, criticize administrations, stress negative future scenarios, and controversially debate over the reality of climate change. Attention thereby is amplified within hybrid discourses which merge different triggers, being dominated by political, cultural, and journalistic media accounts: Political events trigger posts that stress the reality of climate change, whereas tweets on protests and cultural events are amplified if they call for action. However, antagonism and backlashes to such posts are essential features of the peaks investigated. Accordingly, attention is often connected to controversial debates regarding focusing events, polarizing figures (such as Greta Thunberg or Donald Trump), and the formation of counter-public networks. Which content is amplified highly depends on the subnetworks that users are situated in.

Meyer, H. / Peach, A. K. / Guenther, L. / Kedar, H. E. / Brüggemann, M. (2023). Between Calls for Action and Narratives of Denial: Climate Change Attention Structures on Twitter. Media and Communication, 11(1), 278–292. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i1.6111

Abstract

In line with the urgency of problems related to climate change, studies on the framing of this issue have flourished in recent years. However, as in framing research overall,a lack of definitions complicates the synthesis of theoretical/empirical insights. This systematic review contrasts trends of framing in climate change communication to those observed in reviews of communication research overall and harnesses framing’s power to bridge perspectives by comparing frames across different frame locations(i.e., frame production, frame content, audience frames, and framing effects), as part of the wider cultural framing repository. Combining quantitative and qualitative approaches of content analysis, this review draws on 25 years of peer-reviewed literature on the framing of climate change (n = 275). Among the findings, we observe that research has not made use of framing’s bridging potential. Hence, the conceptual (mis)fit between frame locations will be discussed, and directions for future research will be given.

Guenther, L. / Jörges, S. / Mahl, D. / Brüggemann, M. (2023): Framing as a Bridging Concept for Climate Change Communication: A Systematic Review Based on 25 Years of Literature. Communication Research, 009365022211371. https://doi.org/10.1177/00936502221137165

Abstract

How food is produced and consumed matters for both our health and our societies’ ecological footprint. Yet, food practices are a topic at the margins of news coverage and journalism studies. We narrow this research gap by exploring the framing of food in the news. Combining automated and manual content analysis, we study 10,022 articles published in elite newspapers from Germany, the United States (U.S.) and India (2016–2018). Food-related terms are frequently mentioned, but rarely become the main topic of an article. We identified 23 topics associated with five broader frames. The frames Pleasure and Art of Eating and Drinking and Body and Health are most prominent, while other aspects as articulated in the frames Sustainable Living, and Rituals and Traditions as well as Convenience and Price are neglected. U.S. newspapers tend to focus on recipes and restaurant reviews. Indian newspapers highlight health issues and weight loss. In Germany, there was less coverage focusing on food, but with a more even attention to different frames. Food reporting remains to be apolitical, a diversity of food choices is covered – with subtle disregard for questions of sustainability.

Brüggemann, M. / Kunert, J. / Sprengelmeyer, L. (2022): Framing Food in the News: Still Keeping the Politics out of the Broccoli. Journalism Practice, 1–23. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2022.2153074.

Abstract

Investigative journalism is about uncovering what shall not be covered, yet, blind spots remain. This paper explores what topics investigative journalists consider to be neglected in different regions of the world, why these topics are not covered, and how journalists strive to report them in spite of difficulties. We theorize the blind spots by drawing on the Hierarchy of Influences Model, meaning that blind spots in investigative reporting are deeply rooted in these influences. We explore these issues in a global comparative approach and conducted qualitative face-to-face interviews at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference 2019 with 90 investigative journalists from 60 countries. Our findings show that many topics can’t be worked on due to repercussions from four levels of the Hierarchy of Influences Model (esp. from the wider social system), leading to self-censorship. The journalists overcome these obstacles with resourceful individual actions (e.g. publishing from abroad) since their media outlets and organizations are often not fit to help them due to resource constraints. Thus, journalists may defy the hierarchy and see it as their mission to persist, also and especially in countries in the Global South. However, obstacles are found globally and directly affect the nuts and bolts of journalism, such as access to information and sources.

Kunert, J. /  Brüggemann, M. /  Frech, J. /  Lilienthal, V. / Loosen, W. (2022): “You suck it up and you deal with it”: Blind spots in investigative reporting and how to overcome them. Journalism, 146488492211469. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849221146929.

Abstract

To what extent was Greta Thunberg a ‘polarizing figure’ on Facebook, in the period when she received the most extensive media attention? The paper analyses seven months of discussion concerning Thunberg and her message of intergenerational climate justice, using all relevant posts on public Facebook pages in Germany, Sweden, and the UK. We find that there are many similarities in the attitudes expressed and topics discussed on Facebook in the three countries; however, there are also some striking differences in the levels of polarisation. This comparative study provides evidence that the level of polarisation around these topics on Facebook is very low in Sweden and the UK, but high in Germany. In Germany, a group of political actors stand out as particularly polarising, and, in contrast to the other two countries, the topic of intergeneration justice, the core of Thunberg’s message, is almost absent from the German Facebook discourse. The study shows that Thunberg was not in general a polarising figure in the three European countries and that neither the affordances offered by the platform nor features of her person, message, or activism explain the observed polarisation around Thunberg on Facebook.

Elgesem, Dag; Brüggemann, Michael (2022): Polarisation or just differences in opinion: How and why Facebook users disagree about Greta Thunberg. In European Journal of Communication, 02673231221116179. DOI: 10.1177/02673231221116179.

Abstract

Modeling future pathways is essential for climate research, and such climate futures are also an integral part of media coverage on climate change. However, research on media’s framing of climate change has only sparsely investigated future visions, although media effect studies assume that characteristics of climate futures, including their visual representation, can motivate people to act. Hence, in this study, we analyzed the multimodal media framing of climate futures. The qualitative content analysis considered leading news magazine cover stories on climate change (N = 62) from 1980 to 2019 in India, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We identified three multimodal frames: While Global Doom and Local Tragedies were dominant in the early years, a new frame has recently emerged and focuses more prominently on a Sustainable Future. This analysis thus witnessed a shift from apocalyptic climate futures to a more diverse and potentially empowering reporting.

Lars Guenther, Michael Brüggemann & Shorouk Elkobros (2022) From Global Doom to Sustainable Solutions: International News Magazines’ Multimodal Framing of our Future with Climate Change, Journalism Studies, 23:1,131-148, DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2021.2007162

Abstract

Media systems have changed significantly as a result of the development of information technologies. However, typologies of media systems that incorporate aspects of digitalization are rare. This study fills this gap by identifying, operationalizing, and measuring indicators of media systems in the digital age. We build on previous work, extend it with new indicators that reflect changing conditions (such as online news use), and include media freedom indicators. We include 30 countries in our study and use cluster analysis to identify three clusters of media systems. Two of these clusters correspond to the media system models described by Hallin and Mancini, namely the democratic-corporatist and the polarized-pluralist model. However, the liberal model as described by Hallin and Mancini has vanished; instead, we find empirical evidence of a new cluster that we call “hybrid”: it is positioned in between the poles of the media-supportive democratic-corporatist and the polarized-pluralist clusters.

Edda Humprecht, Laia Castro Herrero, Sina Blassnig, Michael Brüggemann, Sven Engesser, Media Systems in the Digital Age: An Empirical Comparison of 30 Countries, Journal of Communication, Volume 72, Issue 2, April 2022, Pages 145–164, https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqab054