National Politics & Media Presentation of Climate Change

11/17/20221 min read

Following a recent discussion amongst my academic colleagues, I was struck by a curiosity to find out more about the influence of national – as opposed to international - politics or policies on media coverage of climate change.

Utilising a worldwide sample across 41 countries for the year 2008, Barkemeyer et al (2017) concluded that, in relation to climate-change related media, there was a positive relationship between regulatory quality and levels of media coverage, and a negative correlation between unemployment trends and media coverage. Regulatory quality was defined to mean “perceptions of the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development”. As regards employment, “[high] levels of unemployment have the potential to shift a country’s economic policy into the spotlight of public attention, and to crowd out other concerns such as climate change”.

In a 2013 study on media attention for climate change conducted across 27 countries worldwide, Schmidt et al (2013) concluded that climate change coverage has increased in all countries, peaking during Conferences of Parties. In those countries, media attention is highest in “carbon-dependent countries with commitments under the Kyoto Protocol” and “for which fuel exports are an important contribution to economic wealth” (Schmidt et al, 2013).

I support the argument by Rootes et al (2012) that, because "[national] governments are constrained by conflicting interests, commitments and electoral competition”, action or pressure for action must come from the grassroots level.

References:-