Counterbalancing global media frames with nationally colored narratives: A comparative study of news narratives and news framing in the climate change coverage of five countries

Abstract

This study disentangles national and transnational influences on international journalism by distinguishing convergent issue framing from nationally specific narrative in news texts. In a comparative quantitative content analysis of the newspaper coverage in five democratic countries (Brazil, Germany, India, South Africa, and United States) during four United Nations climate change conferences from 2010 to 2013, both textual-visual framing and narrative features were studied simultaneously for the first time. The narrative dimension consisted of variables that gauge (1) the degree of narrativity in an article, (2) the type of narrative (i.e. stories of catastrophe, conflict, success etc.), and (3) narrative roles of victims, villains, and heroes. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to identify both the prevailing issue frame in an article and its dominant narrative. Results show that issue frames converge more strongly across countries while narratives are more closely related to the cultural context and political particularities of each country. Investigating issue frames and narratives concurrently helps to reveal country-specific patterns of narrative coloring even for the same issue frame.

Nationalizing a global phenomenon: A study of how the press in 45 countries and territories portrays climate change

“…Most framing studies have focused on detecting the presence of frames in texts. Others have used experiments to examine the influence of frames on the audience (Kahneman and Tversky, 1984;Lück et al, 2018;O'Neill et al, 2015). However, academic attention paid to the influence on frame construction/production is surprisingly limited.…”

Explaining the Media's Framing of Renewable Energies: An International Comparison

“…In this study, we used the manual reductionist framing approach, which is suitable to identify frames from medium to large text corpora (Matthes and Kohring, 2008;Schäfer and O'Neill, 2017). A similar research strategy was exerted by Lück and colleagues to identify frames on climate change in five countries (Lück et al, 2016). A systematic literature review of media framing studies published between 1999 and 2005 (Matthes, 2009) showed that Entman's framing concept is the most dominant, likely because it can be applied to (almost) any social and political issue and because the designation of four concrete frame elements allows for improved operationalisation (Matthes and Kohring, 2008).…”

Public engagement with climate imagery in a changing digital landscape

“…And the third is a focus on print-media, particularly broadsheet newspapers. Despite decreasing circulation, print media is overwhelmingly the most studied, accounting for over 60% of media studies (Schäfer & Schlichting, 2014), and the majority of imagery-studies on climate change (Duan et al, 2017;Lück, Wessler, Wozniak, & Lycarião, 2016;O'Neill, Boykoff, Niemeyer, & Day, 2013;Rebich-Hespanha et al, 2014). To date, reviews of imagery are mostly drawn from large national newspapers (Duan et al, 2017;O'Neill, Williams, Kurz, Wiersma, & Boykoff, 2015;Rebich-Hespanha et al, 2014;Smith & Joffe, 2009;Wessler, Wozniak, Hofer, & Lück, 2016), reflecting the overall focus of academic analysis on broadsheet media.…”