Portraying the Displaced: A Study of Newspapers Framing of Climate Displaced Individuals

Sammanfattning: This study examines how the media presents the issue of climate migration and explores thedifferences in framing across four selected newspapers: The New York Times, The WallStreet Journal, The Hindu and The Times of India. With a sample of 34 articles, the studyconducts a framing analysis to investigate visual-, title-, and body text framing, as well as thelevel of agency given to climate migrants. The analysis reveals that the level of agency givento migrants is relatively high across all newspapers. Within the sample, it was revealed thatthe most commonly used frame was the victim frame. However, the study finds variations inthe framing of climate migration within and across the selected newspapers. The threat framewas identified in the body text framing in only two of the newspapers: The Hindu and TheTimes of India, suggesting they put greater emphasis on the potential risks of climatemigration. The Humanitarian frame was much more frequently employed within the articlesfrom The New York Times compared to the articles of the other newspapers. The reasonsbehind these differences call for further research but suggest that varying priorities andconcerns within the countries from which the newspapers report, contribute to the framing ofclimate migration.