Climate journalism in a changing media ecosystem

Assessing the production of climate change‐related news around the world

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12929282
AutoresMike S Schäfer (0000-0002-0847-7503, Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration, autor correspondente), John Painter (0000-0003-4155-6243, Oxford University Press (United Kingdom))
Ano2020
Volume12
Fascículo1
Data de publicação2020-08-21
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoWiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1757-7780 • E-ISSN: 1757-7799
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/wcc.675
OpenAlexW3080149955
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas110
Referências citadas97

Climate journalism gathers, evaluates, selects, and presents information about climate change, its characteristics, causes, and impacts, as well as ways to mitigate it, and distributes them via technical media to general and specialist audiences. It is an important source of information about climate change for many people. Currently, however, the media ecosystem surrounding climate journalism is changing, with economic conditions becoming more strenuous, more communicators joining the debate, and social media changing the affordances of communication. This advanced review synthesizes scholarship on both the status quo and the changes taking place in climate journalism in the Global North and the Global South. While it demonstrates that the scholarship has distinct gaps and biases, it does distill several robust findings. First, it shows that the organizational embedding of climate journalism is changing, with specialist reporters becoming scarce and working under more strenuous conditions and with the emergence of online‐born news media and niche sites specializing in climate journalism. It also suggests that few specialist climate journalists exist in the Global South. Second, it demonstrates that the range of roles available to climate journalists has diversified, with a shift from “gatekeeping” to “curating” roles. Third, it indicates that climate journalists’ relationships with their sources have changed. Elite sources have been, and still are, important, but their composition has shifted from scientists to a broader range of stakeholders. Correspondingly, there seems to be a strong and rising influence of stakeholder PR on climate journalism. This article is categorized under: Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication

Climate change · Gatekeeping · Geography · Journalism · Media studies · Political science · Public relations · Scholarship · Social media · Sociology · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Media Studies and Communication · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Ecology