Global issue, developed country bias: the Paris climate conference as covered by daily print news organizations in 13 nations

Sonya Gurwitt (), Kari Malkki () and Mili Mitra ()
Additional contact information
Sonya Gurwitt: Brown University
Kari Malkki: Brown University
Mili Mitra: Brown University

Climatic Change, 2017, vol. 143, issue 3, No 1, 296 pages

Abstract: Abstract To understand how media portrayed the pivotal 2015 UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris, we assessed 2580 articles that appeared during the 2 weeks of the conference in the online versions of the two or three leading print newspapers in four developed countries, six emerging economies, and three developing countries: the USA, France, UK, Australia, India, China, South Africa, Brazil, Bolivia, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. Categorization by key topics revealed that much of the coverage left readers with little understanding of many of the issues discussed at COP21, and in particular, those of high priority to developing nations. For example, there was little coverage of adaptation to climate impacts and far higher coverage of emissions reductions (mitigation). Print stories largely were updates on the talks, or focused on activists, the actions of world leaders at the conference, and the environmental effects of climate change. Furthermore, articles under-reported key issues for poorer nations such as equity, human rights, and the effects on human populations. Online coverage by print news organizations was heavily skewed towards the developed world, with little discussion of the most vulnerable countries or the issues that are important to them. These trends highlight the bias of coverage to developed nation perspectives and the persistence of journalistic norms that seek to emphasize drama, novelty, and balance in news coverage.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-017-2004-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:143:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s10584-017-2004-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-017-2004-2

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().